Bell + Astral Media?

[Jim9guitars]

Just a thought, but why would Bell want to buy(for mega-bucks) a cable TV provider at a time when people are cancelling cable in favor of watching their favorite shows on the net, or even over the air with a digital antenna(if you live in a big city). My daughter tells me most of her generation don't have a landline phone or cable, and will probably never get either because they all have cell phones and laptops. I recently cancelled my cable because they took two of my favorite channels out of the basic package and told me if I want them I have to upgrade to the next package at an increase of almost $30.00 a month! Of course, that comes with a whole bunch of other channels but not any that I want. Anyway, I don't miss the cable, I bought a little digital antenna for $20.00 and get a few local stations and I catch my favorite shows online and find that now I spend less time mindlessly sitting on the couch flipping through the stations and more time doing productive things.

[Eder]

Astral is not a cable company. The older generation has plenty of money to pay for cable and it remains a cash cow.

[dogcom]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/p...locked-by-crtc

I don't follow this company but what do you guys think of this decision? I wonder if Bell can still pass the deal and if not is Astral worth the price the stock has now dropped to or is the competition to great for this company on its own?

[Eder]

I think Astral was worth what BCE offered...content is everything in the future. I think Astral will get sold off in chunks in the future and BCE can pick up Francophone content then...

[Spudd]

I'm just glad I sold my Astral stock after they announced the buyout instead of hanging on to tender later.

[carverman]

I don't follow this company but what do you guys think of this decision? I wonder if Bell can still pass the deal and if not is Astral worth the price the stock has now dropped to or is the competition to great for this company on its own?

Astral Media is a conglomerate that Bell wants to be part of it's BCE family. Astral owns "THE MOVIE NETWORK".

the Movie Network is a member of the Astral family. Astral Media Inc. is one of Canada's largest media companies. It operates several of the country's most popular pay and specialty television, radio, out-of-home advertising and interactive media properties. Astral plays a central role in community life across the country by offering diverse, rich and vibrant programming that meets the tastes and needs of consumers and advertisers. To learn more about Astral, visit astral.com.

Bell wants a BIGGER slice of that revenue for themselves, rather than pay licencing fees to Astral, since they offer a lot of these specialty channels on their Sat TV. Of course the other players in the game, (Shaw, Rogers, Cogeco etc) are not happy about having to pay licensing fees to Bell... if Bell managed to acquire Astral, so they are in opposition to the takeover.

According to the CRTC rules, no one company can have more than 33% share of the entertainment media (ahem..revenue)"pie".
The Bell purchase of Astral would then put Bell at 42%..and that contravenes " the rules", set up by the CRTC.
The others (Rogers,Shaw etc ) don't like that, because Bell is basically wanting to eat their breakfast.

So since Bell didn't have anything in their application to CRTC to show how the public would benefit from this deal, (ie: lets say lower Sat TV rates as a result), tghe only one seeming to benefit from the buyout, was Bell. So they were denied.

Interesting to note, that I had suscribed to National Geographic channel for a while on my Bell Sat Tv and during commercials, the sign came
up "National Geographic, part of SHAW"..so Shaw owns this channel and Bell must be paying them for licensing this channel, based on
their signed up (to this channel) subscriber base.

The entertainment market (not just cable/sat) is a huge market and the players that are in it, are always looking for opportunity to carve
themselves a bigger piece of the revenue pie and not have to share their revenue (through licensing fees) to the other players.

[CanadianCapitalist]

TD Securities put out a report on Astral this morning.

Is There Likely to be Another Bidder and Who Might Be Interested?


We believe that there is a reasonable chance that another bidder emerges to acquire Astral and handicap Rogers and Corus as the most likely in that regard. There is some potential for other BDU’s to bid for Astral but factors unique to each of those companies make it somewhat less likely, in our view. We outline the potentially interested parties and some factors that make them more or less likely to bid for Astral in Exhibit 2.

It is relevant to note that while Astral was in negotiations with BCE it received two takeover offers in addition to the one from Bell.

[carverman]

TD Securities put out a report on Astral this morning.

What also is going to hurt Bell, is the cancellation penalty to Astral ( rumoured to be around $118 million) they have to pay for the deal not going through.
Even if it is still considered "loose pocket change" in regards to the 3.4 Billion takeover of Astral Media. it's still going to hurt them in the pocket book.

Diversity of Voices policy?
We met all the CRTC’s rules, indeed our acquisition of Astral was based directly on the CRTC’s currently in-place Diversity of Voices policy,"said George Cope, President and CEO of Bell Canada and BCE Inc.

A 45 percent share of a national television audience might easily include local or regional monopolies. A broadcaster, for example, might control 100 percent of Ottawa's television audience, but only 15 percent of Ontario's total television audience and much less of a national audience. The new rules enshrine local monopolies, so long as the 45 percent mark isn't tipped at the national scale.
http://openmedia.ca/news-item/new-cr...-failing-grade

Ok, if Bell thinks that their acquisition of Astral was based on interpretation of the current CRTC "Diversity of Voices" policy..
Where did Bell fail in meeting the requirements of that policy, that resulted in their rejection????

[dogcom]

Thanks carverman and others for explaining this and the competition in more detail. This company looks like something that should now be on my radar now that the price has dropped considerably after the news.