Bell Media Inc.

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Media (Television, Radio, Digital Media)
Predecessor(s)	CTVglobemedia
Founded	2011 (through acquisition of CTVglobemedia)
Headquarters	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Area served	Canada
Key people	Kevin Crull, president
Owner(s)	BCE Inc.
Divisions	CTV Inc., Bell Media Radio
Website	http://www.bellmedia.ca/

Bell Media is the mass media subsidiary of BCE (also known as Bell Canada Enterprises, the parent company of Bell Canada). Its operations include television broadcasting and production (including the CTV and CTV Two television networks), radio broadcasting (through Bell Media Radio), Digital Media, and Internet properties including Sympatico.ca.

Bell Media is the successor-in-interest to Baton Broadcasting (later CTV Inc.), one of Canada's first private-sector television broadcasters. The company in its current form was originally established as Bell Globemedia by BCE and the Thomson family in 2001 combining CTV Inc., which Bell had acquired the previous year, and the operations of the Thomsons' The Globe and Mail. Bell sold the majority of its interest in 2006 (at which point the company was renamed CTVglobemedia), but re-acquired the entire company, excluding the Globe, in 2011.

Bell Media's former entities, Baton Broadcasting, Bell Globemedia, and CTVglobemedia.

History [edit]

Astral Media takeover [edit]

Rejected first attempt [edit]

On March 16, 2012, BCE announced that it had entered in an agreement to acquire Montreal-based broadcaster Astral Media for an estimated value at $3.38 billion; the assets of which were to be incorporated into Bell Media. The acquisition was primarily centered around Astral's premium services (such as The Movie Network and its stake in HBO Canada) and its French-language radio and television stations. Bell planned to use Astral's premium offerings to enhance its own multi-platform services to compete against the likes of services such as Netflix, and its French media outlets to better compete against the dominant Québecor Média.^[1] The merger was notably opposed by a coalition of competing cable providers (which included Cogeco, EastLink, and Vidéotron—the last of which is also owned by Québecor Média, who felt that Bell's control of a majority of Canadian media would harm consumer choice, and lead to increased carriage fees which could cripple smaller cable companies.^[2]

On October 18, 2012, the CRTC officially denied BCE's proposal to acquire Astral. The commission cited that their combined market power could "threaten the availability of diverse programming for Canadians and endanger the ability of distribution undertakings to deliver programming at affordable rates and on reasonable terms on multiple platforms", and also stated that allowing the merger would have required the implementation of "extensive and intrusive safeguards" across the entire broadcasting industry. The CRTC also felt that Bell did not adequately demonstrate how having most of Canada's French-language media be owned by two vertically integrated companies would improve competition, and how being bigger would allow it to compete against foreign services.^[3] Due to conditions placed upon the merger in the case of regulatory disapproval, Bell must pay Astral $150 million in penalties.^[4][4] BCE and Astral announced an extension of the closure of their deal for Astral Media to December 16, 2012, allowing both companies to adjust their takeover deal with the elimination of certain assets.^[5]

Second attempt [edit]

On March 4, 2013, the Competition Bureau approved BCE's second proposal to acquire Astral Media. The ruling places restrictions preventing Bell Media from imposing restrictive bundling requirements on any provider seeking to carry The Movie Network or Super Écran (which are among the eight cable channels that Bell will acquire through the merger), and requires that Bell divest itself of several specialty channels and radio stations.^[6] Bell reached a tentative agreement to sell Astral's stakes in Teletoon (along with Cartoon Network and Teletoon Retro) and two radio stations to Corus Entertainment (which already owns a 50% stake in Teletoon through a joint venture with Astral) for $400.6 million; it also announced that it would sell Family, Disney Junior (both English and French), Disney XD, MusiMax and MusiquePlus in an "auction process".^[7]

The new deal will still be subject to CRTC approval – Bell filed a new application with the commission for the proposed takeover on March 6, 2013,^[8] and the CRTC is expected to hear the new proposal sometime in early 2013. As opposed to the previous deal (which would have given Bell a 42% share of the English-language television market), the new deal would only give Bell a total market share of 35.7%, but will increase its French-language market share to 23% (in comparison to 8% with the prior proposal).^[9]

Operations [edit]

Bell Media's largest division is Bell Media Television, which owns the following broadcast television assets:

• CTV, Canada's oldest, largest, and most-watched private broadcast television network, including 21 owned and operated stations.^[10]
• CTV Two a secondary television system which presently consists of five terrestrial television stations in Ontario, one in British Columbia as well as two cable-only channels, one in Alberta and the other in Atlantic Canada

Bell Media Television also owns 30 cable television specialty channels, frequently in partnership with U.S. companies which operate similar channels, and primarily concentrated in the following genres:

¹No foreign co-owners or brand partners are involved with these channels. However (like most news organizations) CTV does rely on foreign news sources, such as ABC News and CNN, for some international coverage.

Through its Bell Media Radio division, the company is also Canada's fifth-largest private-sector radio broadcaster, after Astral Media, Newcap Broadcasting, Rogers Media and Corus Entertainment.

In addition, Bell Media owns television/radio production studios and websites associated with all of the above properties, as well as the Sympatico.ca Internet portal previously operated through Bell Canada.

See also [edit]

• Bell Canada
• Torstar Corporation
• Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan

References [edit]

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: CTVglobemedia

• Bell Media website