CRTC kills Astral-Bell deal

Broadcast regulator rules one company would control too much of the TV market.

by Steve Ladurantaye

BCE Inc’s $3.4-billion deal for Astral Media has been killed by the country’s broadcast regulator, which said the merged mega-company would be impossible to police without imposing “extensive and intrusive safeguards” that would affect every broadcaster in the country.

It was up to executives from BCE and its Bell Media division to convince the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications the deal would benefit consumers, and they argued that owning Astral would allow Bell to be a Canadian champion that could help fend off assaults on the country’s broadcast system by foreign competitors such as Netflix.

But after reviewing submissions from more than 9,700 interveners and holding a week-long hearing that gave Bell’s rivals ample opportunity to beat up the Montreal-based company, the commission didn’t see any reason to allow one company to control as much as 42 per cent of the English television market and 33 per cent of the French. …

© Copyright 2012 SGNews Staff, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca