Canadian TV, Computing and Home Theatre Forums banner

Corus Entertainment Taking Over Shaw Media

15K views 59 replies 27 participants last post by  ParamountChris 
#1 ·
#4 ·
This probably won't mean a whole lot for the consumer. The deal makes sense as Shaw needed money to fund the purchase of Wind. Corus and Shaw were tightly knit as the Shaw family owns the majority of the voting rights with both companies.

I do wonder if Shaw may make a play for a cable company like Cogeco or Eastlink now to increase the potential bundle subscribers for Wind though they will probably wait it out until they're done the upgrades out west
 
#7 ·
I wonder if this means that CHEX and CKWS will have to be sold.


I can see the CTV affiliation agreement being cancelled and both stations being rebranded under the Global banner. I believe that under the new skinny packages coming out soon, local tv will be a part of any package. So I think local conventional tv stations have value. Can't see why either station would have to be sold as Shaw or Corus do not own any other stations in those markets. imho
 
#8 ·
Here is a far out idea. Corus consolidates the industry further by buying out Channel Zero. And flips CHCH and its repeaters to CTV to make it CTV2. CTV2 stations flip to Global and a bunch of Global repeaters are shut down. Global gets news operations in London, Windsor, Barrie, flip Peterborough and Kingston to Global and beef up CHRO to a full bureau again.

Global gets news operations across Ontario and CTV has more coverage for CTV2 across Ontario. Not sure if CTV even wants to keep CTV2 alive as a brand but I think there is a shake out yet to come in the Ontario market. There are too many signals and repeaters across the province for what the OTA can support on commercial ad revenue.
 
#9 ·
Press Conference - Wednesday, 13 January, 2016 2:40 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. MT /4:40 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. ET

Click here to listen to the live webcast (audio only). Link will be active an hour before the press conference begins.

The transaction will have to be approved by the CRTC and the Corus minority shareholders (excluding the Shaw family.) The CRTC already considers Shaw and Corus as related entities since the Shaw family has voting control of both, so that should go through.

Purchase price $2.65 billion, including $1.85 billion in cash and the balance in Corus Class B Shares.

Purchase of WIND - $1.6 billion, so Shaw will have an extra $250 million in cash to expand the WIND network.
 
#12 ·
@ExDilbert the press release spells out how the money will be recovered:
...purchase price of $2.65 billion, representing a multiple of ~7.7x FY2015 consolidated reported adjusted EBITDA.
In other words, Corus is paying the fair market value of the future earnings of Shaw Media, based on the current subscriber and advertising revenue. The deal will be financed by "combination of new senior unsecured notes and a potential offering of subscription receipts for Corus Class B Shares."

There is no reason to believe that subscriber rates will go up any more than they would have otherwise.
 
#14 ·
If this all means that Corus will be buying Global. It doesn't actually mean that CHEX, and CKWS will need to be sold. They could provide two 720p signals on their stations, and have x.1 - Global, and x.2 CTV on them. Corus is actually providing subs channels with their FM stations that are doing HD Radio. This may finally open up the door to a greater use of sub-channels in OTA.
 
#15 ·
At this rate, I operate under the presumption that Global, Showcase and BBC Canada will probably fill more of their timeslots with that excellent program known as Just for Laughs: Gags. DejaView too, because that show is practically a classic.

Obviously I'm being sarcastic. Who knows? Maybe owning Shaw's networks might give Corus a better variety of Cancon filler?
 
#20 ·
So... is there anything we can do to limit the potential negative impacts of this? Like, would it be at all plausible to recommend to the CRTC that they reduce the number of shares that are allowed to be transferred to Shaw Communications, or require that Shaw Media sell some of their discretionary services to a third party?
 
#22 ·
As long as the non-Shaw shareholders approve I don't think the CRTC will have much to say. The CRTC looked at Shaw/Corus as combined entity anyways. This is very much a corporate reorganization. Effective control is not going to change. Although it will be interesting to see if the CRTC will still try to seek some tangible benefits in the transfer.
 
#23 ·
I really hope they don't fill all channels with Just For Laughs: Gags, It's annoying already being on every single Corus channel. What I would like to know is now that Shaw has a 40% share, does this mean for Corus's older shares like Disney Channel, Carrtoon Network, ect? If so, Will Shaw have to throw in "You're watching Disney Channel, Part of Shaw/Corus?"
 
#25 · (Edited by Moderator)
And now Corus is going to buy Shaw?

Corus Entertainment To Buy Shaw Communications Media Division

Companies don't usually buy companies who are buying companies in order to lower the final consumers' monthly bills.

I'm feeling more and more queasy about Shaw buying Wind. Below is the current offering from Wind that we got a couple of months ago. When all the dust is settled, we don't want to be paying more than that.
 
#27 ·
Corus barely even runs bumpers like that. Only Bell and Shaw seem to really want people to know that they own them.

But the fact that Shaw is unloading these networks and focusing purely on telecom may help give Wind or whatever generic Shaw-branded name they'll eventually give it afterwards some legroom from a budgetary standpoint.

Now, of course, the real question is: whose principal staff will run the channels after the purchase? There are some redundancies that may need to be trimmed: if Corus were smart, they'd keep as much as Shaw's staff as possible.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top