WE’RE NOT USED TO what we saw Tuesday. When Shaw Communications appears before the CRTC, we more often than not witness quarrelsome company executives facing off against sometimes testy commissioners.
We just have to point to a couple of pieces of evidence. There’s more, but these will give you a sense of what we mean (we’re partial to the one where Shaw said last fall they weren’t going to buy broadcasters…)
But today? Compared to past Shaw-involved hearings, “this was super-fun-time-happy-hour,” is how wish-I-hadn’t-but-did put it to Global TV reporter David Boushy.
Tuesday morning we had a panel of Shaw executives who are very happy to be saving Canwest and pleased to be flexible when it came to questions and challenges the panel of CRTC commissioners posed.
Who are these guys, the cynic in us was tempted to ask?
The company agreed to a deal valuation of just over $2 billion, which will set the tangible benefits package at just over $200 million. It said it wants to make all of Canwest’s analog TV transmitters digital and that it won’t hoard all Canwest content for its own platforms.
Shaw’s concessions rendered commissioners optimistically speechless a few times, and the day wrapped up rather early.
********************
While Shaw said it is determined to use a portion of the tangible benefits package to bring digital over-the-air television to smaller communities served by 67 transmitters which aren’t in mandatory markets, von Finckenstein asked them to consider something else: Just giving everyone who gets OTA only a Shaw Direct dish and box.
Shaw said it would spend $23 million on those transmitters, but the CRTC chairman pointed out that only about 31,000 Canadian rural households get TV only off-air. Assuming a $500 cost for satellite gear and installation, that’s only about $15 million. So why not do that instead of installing new digital transmitters for Global TV?
Setting aside how giving away satellite equipment would cause the independent cable operators’ blood to flash boil, Shaw president Peter Bissonnette told Cartt.ca there’s more to consider than just those numbers. Company research shows there are about 400,000 households in Canada who watch Global off-air and they’d like to keep serving them (even if it’s just a second TV with rabbit ears).
Plus, “I have some concerns about how you actually contain that amount of money,” said Bissonnette. ““If it’s only 31,000 people and only $15 million, that may make sense. We have to look at it. But as soon as you start giving stuff away, are you opening the door to giving more than you anticipated away.”
Then again, there’s still the issue of getting new digital rabbit ears to the folks with older, OTA analog sets and the industry still has no plan to even tell people about the digital transition.
*******************
Shaw would like to keep the $95 million still owing from the benefits package pledged when Canwest Global purchased Alliance Atlantis as part of the tangible benefits of this new transaction. Don’t think the Commission is on board with that.
During his exchange with the CCSA, von Finckenstein noted that when CTV bought CHUM, it tried to claim something similar (CHUM still owed benefits leftover from its prior purchase of Craig Media) and CTV was shot down then.
“The same applies here,” he said,
********************
Could this be Jim Shaw’s final CRTC appearance as CEO of Shaw Communications? EVP and younger brother, Brad Shaw, has played a leading role both in Tuesday’s presentation to the Commission about the merger and the company’s cable license renewals on Monday, so speculation is rising.
While the Shaws have not yet said if succession is going to happen soon, several sources close to the company and their executives have told us that the brothers are talking openly among themselves and others, letting them know a transition from Jim to Brad as the communications’ company’s head honcho, is coming soon.
– Greg O’Brien
