Bell-CTV Deal "more meagre and self-serving...than usual": Winseck

By Dwayne Winseck for Mediamorphis:

This is a first take on today’s decision by the CRTC to approve BCE’s return to the broadcasting business (full decision here). For those with what constitutes an elephantine memory in these fast and harried times, BCE had taken CTV over once before, in 2000 and failed. It left the television business six years later. Today, it returned with the CRTC’s blessing and typical sop thrown to the Canadian ‘broadcasting system’, albeit at perhaps an even more meagre and self-serving level than usual.

The decision allows Bell Canada Enterprises a second run at making vertical integration and so-called synergies work between Canada’s telephone, satellite and ISP (i.e. network infrastructure provider) and the largest media group in the country, with its CTV and A-channel networks, 31 satellite and cable television channels, 28 local television stations and 33 radio stations. The only things really different now than 10 years ago is the Globe & Mail is no longer a part of the package, although its owners, primarily the Thomson family, retain a minority interest in CTV.

Another important thing that should catch our eye is that the value of CTV is now less than it was a decade ago, not because the tv business has shrunk — overall it has expanded from a $5 billion industry to one worth $7 billion (adjusted for inflation) — but because the first six year’s of BCE’s tenure were pitifully poor. CTV was worse less than half its original value when BCE left in 2006. Today, and after all the growth in the industry plus the acquisition of CHUM, the combined value is about the same as CTV was ten years ago: $2.45 billion.

That number is important because it’s the one that the CRTC uses to peg the value of the contributions that BCE will have to pay into the ‘broadcast system’ in order to gain the CRTC’s blessing. At ten percent, BCE’s contribution is $245 million. The funny part is that $65 million of that amount will go to paying Bell TV, BCE’s direct-to-home satellite provider. Read more »

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Read the full article at dwmw.wordpress.com

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