The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has blocked BCE, the owner of operator Bell Canada, from acquiring Quebecois broadcaster Astral Media.
In March BCE agreed to purchase Astral Media in a deal worth C$3.38bn…
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has blocked BCE, the owner of operator Bell Canada, from acquiring Quebecois broadcaster Astral Media.
In March BCE agreed to purchase Astral Media in a deal worth C$3.38bn (US$3.41bn), but the regulator has decided to block the transaction on antitrust grounds.
“BCE failed to persuade us that the deal would benefit Canadians,” said Jean-Pierre Blais, the recently appointed chairman of the CRTC, justifying its ruling.
“It would have placed significant market power in the hands of one of the country’s largest media companies. We could not have ensured a robust Canadian broadcasting system without imposing extensive and intrusive safeguards, which would have been to the detriment of the entire industry.”
BCE currently owns a number of television and radio services, as well as a national broadcasting distributor. It is also the largest ISP, the second largest wireless service provider and the third largest television distributor. The CRTC was reluctant to give the company any more size and scale.
BCE calls on gov’t to overrule the CRTC
BCE said it was “appalled” by the regulator’s decision and will ask the government to intervene and overrule the verdict.
“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 BCE’s CEO George Cope in a statement.
“The wide-ranging benefits to Canadians of the transaction are clear, but the CRTC has told consumers that they and the rules in place just don’t matter.”
BCE also questioned the impartiality of the regulator alleging senior CRTC officials had met privately with BCE’s cable competitors multiple times in the days and weeks before the commission began its public hearings into the BCE-Astral transaction, while denying BCE the opportunity for any such consultations.
Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper appointed the CRTC’s new chairman, Jean-Pierre Blais, in June – how he handled BCE’s Astral buy was being touted as a bellwether case for his chairmanship.
