Canadian Broadband → Bell to acquire Astral media

I agree with the above. Does that get me a free breakfast from Bell ?

No, you only get the appetizer. If you want the main course for breakfast, not only will you need to pay for it, but you'll also be required to pay for lunch.

Where are Bell's priorities? Build the IPTV customer base, then buy the Astral Media's of the world.

Bell hardly has any TV screens to show that content on, unless they only want to show content on mobile.

i believe comcast did.

Comcast is technically not considered a peer of Bell. Comcast is a cable company (cableco), which has a large cable base to view the content it bought.

Bell is a telephone company (telco), which does not have a large cable base. Only 2 million Satellite customers, which pales in comparison to Rogers' and Videotron's cable base.

Telco-AT&T, Verizon, Bell, Telus
Cableco-Comcast, Time Warner, Rogers, Shaw

Canwest's problem was the newspapers, the economic downturn killed them.

Also Conrad Black was determined to make the National Post work and threw bricks of money at it. They then put a TV guy in charge of a newspaper chain.

I read an interesting book a few years back about the Post.

Comcast bought NBC, there is your content there.

Conrad Black exited the canadian market, which is how a big part of his canadian newspaper empire ended up at canwest. The fraud did not have anything to do with running Postmedia once it was sold to canwest because Black wanted out of Canada.

The thing is that canwest bought way too many things at the same time and had it not bought alliance/atlantis, then its credit would have been just eough to survive the downturn.

Read a book called Ego and Ink: The Inside Story of Canada's National Newspaper War , and you'll see that the Aspers paid WAYYY too much money for Southam, (Postmedia is the post bankruptcy print media company) and had no idea how to run a newspaper. The National Post also never turned dime 1. They were airlifting papers from Toronto to the East Coast!

Really interesting story it covers all the papers, but does focus a fair bit on the National Post.

Oh, I agree that Canwest was not suited to run the newspapers. Like Bell, they got conned into "convergence" spending spree without undertanding it.

Black found the right idiots to buy his canadian newspapers he was so desperate to unload.

However, there is a certain level of foolish purchases that a company can survive. Had it been newspapers alone, Canwest might not have had to go through bankrucpy.

And consider this: had Shaw not purchased Canwest to save it from liquidation, Bell likely would not have purchased CTV again and Canada would be far better off.

Which brings us full circle, who is left to buy?
Shaw and Rogers (and poor Telus keeps getting left at the alter) will want something to "up the ante" when it comes to the BCE purchase.

LionsGate?

Since we're technically talking about IPTV, off to the side. Our benevolent evil money grubbing big content providers will soon have a *new* way to ding subscribers, and I can allready see B#ell & Robbers doing this. See the following /. article Your Magical TV Remote Customer Nickel & Dimings To Death Plan See why this Astral Media acquisition is just another consolidation leaving people with even less choice and higher bills; and they're not quite done yet?


GeekWire's Version Next they are going to tell us it's 50 cents to change the channel + whatever revenue they lose from us not watching adds on said channel we changed from.



We is D00Med.

Why is Bell buying media companies when it doesn't even have a large cable base to view the content (only 2 million sat customers nationally, a few thousand Fibe customers)?

wow it's like groundhog day
Think you said that 3 times in the last two pages

Bell purchased CTV for many reasons IMHO. First to gain an equal footing when negotiating for content with other players who are well integrated: Videotron, Shaw and Rogers. Next they expected that the return on investment from the assets themselves would be good. Even without the leverage and synergy benefits, the purchase would be be positive for earnings.

In summary they gained:
-Better footing for negotiating content from other integrated players
-More content access for mobile/online and STB VOD platforms
-Efficiencies in both business through integration of a telco and content company. They both probably paid each other a bunch of money for services.

Given their renewed focus on media and content, it is an excellent deal. It ain't cheap given that there were other potential buyers.

Since there's a war in Quebec between Bell & Quebecor, it's probably the best move BCE could've done to maintain it's leadership.

Don't forget that they own about half of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment. When they bought MLSE analysts were saying that neither Bell nor Rogers had the resources to pull off the acquisition on their own and that's why they decided to become partners. What a load of crap.

Bell spent about $630 Million on MLSE and that's only about 20% of what they spent to buy Astral. The government shouldn't allow this deal, Bell is already too big.

I disagree with the entire concept, we have given Canadian Media to 4 companies.

These same 4 companies,
create/obtain the content
broadcast that content
distribute the content
Wireless providers
Internet providers/gatekeepers.

Day and day out people bitch and complain about caps. Even the IISP's can't do too much these days due to son of UBB (Capacity based Billing) and it's outrageous costs and the cabal is still not happy and want more.

Those 4 companies have more then enough incentive to prevent you from getting your content fix elsewhere (Netflix/Hulu come to mind), I cut the cord over 4yrs ago, and while my content fix may not necessarily be on the up and up, I'm watching shows that these same 4 providers have no interest(or have shown no interest) in bringing into Canada. And if that content should be available, it'll be put in a tier that forces me to pay for 100 other channels I will probably never watch before I can see it.

Since they own all the specialty channels it's in their interest again to make sure I buy those 100 channels, generating more income for themselves, even though I again, will never watch it.

I personally have no problem with paying for content on my mobile device, assuming it's a reasonable rate, but I object to paying for bandwidth to watch that same content (double dipping if you will) even though IT NEVER LEAVES THEIR NETWORK

Do you now see how perverse you statement is?

Though it will never happen with a Harper Government(tm), these behemoths have to be broken up period. I'm not even talking functional separation anymore, no I want to see them broken up period.

You are either a broadcaster/ISP/Distributor/wireless provider, but not all 4. Then you'll see real competition in this country,where I'm not paying $60 for 6gb of mobile data or $100 to watch HBO.

/soapbox

I'd rather have Bell buy Astral than Quebecor, for sure.

Sometimes I wonder if Quebecor is a lapdog to Harper with its extreme right-wing bias.

Quebecor=Sun News Network (Fox News North)

At least, CTV News is a bit more balanced.

Y'think? Personally while I like CTV News, my gut tells me they'll do what they're told by both the root corporation and the gubbermints.

There will never be an unbiased unfiltered News Agency in Canada. We only see what they want us to see.

What about the CBC?

There will never be an unbiased unfiltered News Agency in Canada. We only see what they want us to see.

I guess that means the whole of Canada, the entire country...
All news communication goes through the big four conglomerate syndicates don't they?


Cue the Outer Limits: Theme.
“ There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to — The Outer Limits.
— Opening narration, The Control Voice, 1960s ”

Who says internet TV needs these Canadian content providers. It just takes someone to snap up the rights before they do. Once that happens, they will have to compete for it or pay Netflix, Google, Apple etc.

@BACONATOR26 you did see the bit about microsoft monetizing remote controls right?

Analysis: Bell-Astral merger has big regulatory hurdle to clear
CRTC policy sets limits on how many radio stations can be held by one owner
»www.vancouversun.com/bus ··· ory.html

BTW, in Quebec, the leadership is held by Videotron. Bell lost out in TV and internet to them like 3-4 years ago.

They already anticipated having to sell of Radio, there is no money in terrestrial radio anymore. Most are converting to a "talk" format, where it's dirt cheap compared to the fees they have to pay Socan to air the music.

Funny how you can't own more then a few conventional media outlets in one market, but you can own as many specialty as you want.

Love it!!!!

Go away Mirko

Netflix, Google and Apple won't pay exhorbitant "auction" prices for canadian rights because they don't want to have broadcast rights, they just want on-line.

The problem is that the one who gets broadcast usually gets online.

Tell that to The Pirate Bay.