CALGARY – Shaw Communications Inc. said Wednesday the renewal of a long-term agreement to carry 30 of Bell Media’s channels shows Canada’s major media rivals are also capable of working together.
“It’s really a demonstration that large, vertically integrated companies can, in fact, come to an agreement on these kinds of things,” Shaw president Peter Bissonnette said in an interview.
Shaw operates cable TV and satellite television businesses as well as the former Global TV stations across Canada the company bought last year in the bankruptcy of Canwest Global Communications.
That means the Calgary company competes with Bell’s satellite TV services, the former BellExpresvu now called BellTV. It also goes head to head in the TV business with its Montreal rival, which owns the CTV broadcaster and related channels.
Despite the two companies’ commercial rivalry, Bissonnette said, “we’ve been able to come to agreement through the course of reasonable people dealing with reasonable issues,.”
The agreement is expected to run several years, though both companies declined to offer more specifics.
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“It’s longer-term so it gives them some stability, it gives us some stability,” said Bissonnette.
Included in the deal are Bell-owned channels like TSN, RDS, Space and the Discovery Channel.
Rob Goff, analyst with NCP Northland Capital Partners, called the agreement “positive, albeit not a surprise.”
Hearings at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission earlier this year tackled the issue of “vertical integration” – in this instance, when television companies also own the channels they carry.
The federal regulator issued a decision last month that prevents telecom companies from keeping their television content – including sports and live events – exclusively to themselves on mobile devices.
The CRTC has also said distributors like Bell Canada, Quebecor Media (TSX:QBR.B), Rogers Communications (TSX:RCI.B) and Shaw need to give Canadians more flexibility by next April in choosing channels they want in their TV packages.
In its announcement, Shaw said its subscribers can select the channels through traditional packages or its plan personalizer, which allows a more a la carte service.
Shaw (TSX:SJR.B) is Canada’s second-biggest cable TV operator and a dominant player in Western Canada. In the biggest deal in its history last year, Shaw paid $2 billion to acquire 11 former CanWest Global TV stations and a group of specialty channels, including Showcase, MovieTime and HGTV.
Shaw is set to report its fiscal fourth-quarter results on Thursday.
Besides CTV, BCE owns a host of websites, specialty channels and sports and entertainment properties as well as Bell Canada, the country’s largest telecom operator.
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