Vertical Integration

The CRTC held a public hearing last week in response to Bell—Canada’s largest telecom and media conglomerate—once again attempting to take over Astral Media. Last year, the telecom giant unveiled a $3.4B plan to take control of Astral, one of Canada's largest media companies. Canada already has one of the most highly concentrated media systems in the industrialized world, and this deal would only make this situation worse by giving Bell a monopolistic share of the media market.

After thousands of Canadians and public interest groups decried the original takeover attempt, the CRTC denied the deal, saying that Bell had not proven the takeover would benefit the broadcasting system or be in the public interest. So Bell came back with a slightly watered-down version of its original proposal to take over Astral, which included dividing some assets up with Shaw, another one of Canada’s largest media and telecom conglomerates. Read more »

Last year telecom giant Bell unleashed a new $3.4B plan to take control of Astral Media, one of Canada’s largest media companies. Canada already has one of the most highly concentrated media systems in the industrialized world, and this deal would only make this situation worse by giving Bell a monopolistic share of the media market. Now, it seems that the takeover would also give Bell millions in public funding from the Canada Media Fund (CMF), making the deal bad for Canadians on all possible fronts.

The CMF was designed to provide broadcasters with public funding to promote new and innovative Canadian content in a way that levels the playing field and reflects the rapidly changing media landscape. But rather than being used to encourage media innovation, it appears that a whole bunch of CMF funding is going to help Bell further cement its power over Canada’s media system. Read more »

Today is the LAST DAY to push back against Bell's attempt to control more of our communication sources! Bell's power grab for Astral Media would mean less choice for Canadians. We stopped this deal before, so let's raise our voices again. Submit your comments TODAY by 5pm PST (8pm EST) to make your voice heard: http://StoptheTakeover.ca/

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A satirical video from Extremely Decent Films about “honesty” in the telecommunications industry went viral this weekend. A number of our community members took a stand and shared the video in order to help spread the word about our lack of choice for Internet, cell phones, and cable.

***Disclaimer: The video contains some swearing, so please be aware before watching.*** Read more »

Check it out as Lindsey Pinto pushes back against the newest attempt by Bell to control more of our media.