BCE Inc.'s Astral Out of Home division for public advertising displays said Wednesday it has received an eight-year contract to provide digital advertising at the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport. It said this marks its fifth deal with a Canadian airport, and the Ottawa airport will be the first in Canada to have 100 per cent digital advertising after the infrastructure is installed, the company said in a press release. "This new contract allows us to reinforce our advertising presence in the nation's capital while reaching out to the busiest decision-makers and...
The CRTC on Tuesday said it had approved some of BCE Inc.'s proposals for how to manage tangible-benefits payments relating to its acquisition of Astral Media in 2013, though one specific proposal was denied. The CRTC said in an online notice that Bell was denied an application to divert $2 million in payments related to a transaction toward the Théâtre Le Diamant, a planned facility in Quebec City. The commission said Bell was concerned that the Quebec government would back out of financial commitments to this project but has since confirmed its support. Bell's proposal...
Corus Entertainment Inc. on Tuesday said it has made Mario Cecchini president of Corus Radio, effective immediately. Corus CEO Doug Murphy said in a press release that Cecchini has more than 25 years of experience in the radio...
The CRTC said Thursday it has approved the last of the divestments BCE Inc. was obliged to make as part of its 2013 buyout of Astral Media Inc., allowing Groupe V Media Inc. to take control of Quebec Category A music channels...
BCE Inc. announced Tuesday that Luc Sabbatini, who heads the sales division at the company’s media arm, is leaving the company at the end of the year. In a news release, the company said Sabbatini was appointed to the...
The CRTC approved BCE Inc.’s reworked application to purchase Astral Media Inc. for $3.38 billion, with conditions that raise the company’s contributions to Canadian broadcasting by $72...
It's not often that CRTC hearings about mergers and acquisitions draw a room full of laughter. Commissioner Peter Menzies, sitting on the regulator's panel for its hearing on BCE Inc.'s proposed acquisition of Astral Media Inc. for $3.38 billion, did just that on May 7. The laughter came in his response to a suggestion that, this time around, the commission's approval of the deal was already decided. Menzies asked Cary Lawrence, a member of the national executive of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, who was appearing at the hearing as an...
Hamilton, Ont. company Source Cable Ltd. is now offering Astral Media Inc.'s The Movie Network Go service for online, on-demand and mobile viewing, the company said. The service allows cable subscribers who pay for TMN to...
BCE Inc. division Bell Media said broadcast distributors' wholesale fees for access to the company's non-sports programming fell or rose less than the rate of inflation when multi-year...
Additional safeguards intended to protect competitors and consumers from a larger stable of media assets under BCE Inc. are not enough for the broadcast regulator to approve its purchase of Astral...
BCE Inc. executives appeared before CRTC commissioners to make a final pitch for the company's proposed $3.38 billion purchase of Astral Media Inc., where they twice shot down suggested conditions...
BCE Inc., if its deal for Astral Media Inc. goes through, would take an unfair share of national English- and French-language television rights agreements and pan-Canadian advertising deals, Quebecor...
MONTREAL—The “horse trading” of content and channel carriage rights between large, vertically integrated broadcast companies increases wholesale carriage fees for independent...
Astral Media Inc. president and CEO Ian Greenberg requested—and did not receive—a personal meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to discuss the CRTC’s decision last fall to...
MONTREAL—Wireless and TV provider Rogers Communications Inc. told CRTC commissioners that the regulator should order BCE Inc. to divest popular pay TV channel The Movie Network, with HBO, as...
As part of BCE Inc.’s deal for Astral Media Inc., the companies stand by their plan to sell or shut down Montreal radio station TSN Radio if the CRTC does not make an exception to its rule for radio market ownership, said Jacques Parisien, executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Astral. Bell will divest 10 English-language radio stations to meet the CRTC's ownership rules for radio market concentration as part of its bid to acquire Astral for $3.38 billion. At a CRTC hearing on the deal in Montreal on Monday, Bell and Astral officials maintained their position to...
Broadcast distributors turned down BCE Inc.'s proposed deals to carry its content on online, mobile and video-on-demand platforms, Bell said, as the company accused...
Independent broadcast distributors say BCE Inc. has not addressed the CRTC's concerns about market power resulting from an acquisition of Astral Media Inc. and that BCE's share of all carriage...
Five consumer and public interest groups told the CRTC they oppose BCE Inc.'s proposed acquisition of Astral Media Inc. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), which advocates for consumers and acts as counsel for the...
Astral Media Inc.'s acquisition by BCE Inc. will benefit independent producers by providing them with more opportunity and funding to create Canadian content, Astral president John Riley said. At the Prime Time Conference in...
BCE Inc.’s agreement with the Competition Bureau to sell off 12 pay and specialty channels as part of its proposed $3.38-billion acquisition of Astral Media Inc. is a “big step forward” for the deal, Mirko Bibic, Bell’s chief legal and regulatory officer, said in a television interview. In a release after markets closed Monday, the Competition Bureau said Bell agreed to sell off some of Astral’s French- and English-language television channels to gain the bureau’s approval of its bid to buy Astral. Those 12 channels, the bureau said, include The...
TORONTO—Rogers Communications Inc.'s broadcast division is unhappy with the industry's terms of trade agreement with independent producers and will seek a bigger share of production...
The CRTC will publicly issue BCE Inc.'s reworked application to acquire Astral Media Inc. in the new year and will subsequently hold a public hearing to review the application, two people with...
BCE Inc. will court public opinion for support for a renewed application to acquire Astral Media Inc. by focusing on the benefits the deal can provide to local broadcasting, Mirko Bibic, the...
BCE Inc. is nearing an agreement to acquire Astral Media Inc. under new conditions in the hopes of appeasing regulatory concerns that caused the CRTC to block its earlier $3.38 billion-bid for the company, the Globe and Mail...
The Competition Bureau and the CRTC will not block BCE Inc.'s $3.38-billion acquisition of Astral Media Inc. and will seek concessions from the companies or put conditions on the deal, according...
Consumer-friendly content distribution platforms are more important than scale to Canadian broadcasters and broadcast distributors competing against large, over-the-top (OTT) service providers like...
BCE Inc.’s intended $3.38-billion acquisition of Astral Media Inc. will protect Canadian content producers from increasingly competitive online, foreign services that are not bound by Canadian...
Annual broadcast industry data released by the CRTC “confirms” that BCE Inc.’s bid to acquire Astral Media Inc. would put the company’s English-language TV audience share...
BCE Inc., Quebecor Media Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. are scheduled to appear before CRTC commissioners on the first day of a five-day hearing to determine the fate of Bell’s $3.38-billion acquisition of Astral Media Inc. In a hearing agenda posted on the commission’s website, the CRTC said as many as 60 interveners will appear before commissioners during the week long hearing in Montreal, which is scheduled to start Sept. 10. It said the only two items that will be considered during the hearing are Bell’s bid to purchase Astral, and a related effort to change its...
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and advocacy group OpenMedia.ca formed a “broad-based coalition of groups” to oppose BCE Inc.’s $3.38 billion bid to acquire Astral Media Inc., the groups said Tuesday....
Quebecor Media Inc., Cogeco Cable Inc. and Eastlink, a Bragg Communications Inc. subsidiary, asked Heritage Minister James Moore to throw out CRTC interventions from Telefilm Canada and an RCMP...
BCE Inc.’s $3.38 billion bid to acquire Astral Media Inc., will drive broadcasting investment, innovation and choice in the province of Quebec, Bell said in a press release Wednesday. In its release, Bell said the TV, radio...
Quebecor Media Inc., Cogeco Cable Inc.and Eastlink launched an online campaign Tuesday to generate public opposition to BCE Inc.’s proposed $3.38-billion agreement to acquire Astral...