Canada’s Rogers Communications announced Monday that it has entered into multi-year carriage deals with NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Starting in September, Rogers will launch NBCU’s Bravo channel on its own cable systems and streaming service Citytv+, and will also hold the Canadian distribution rights to the channel’s English-language content, which includes popular reality TV series like The Real Housewives franchise, Vanderpump Rules and Top Chef.

And starting in January 2025, Rogers will be home to WBD's suite of English-language lifestyle brands, including HGTV, Food Network and other channels. 

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rogers, Canada’s largest cable provider, ended the first quarter with 2.72 million pay TV subscribers — this platform alone represents a nice North American distribution bounty for WBD and Comcast-owned NBCU, both of which are dealing with vastly reduced reach in the U.S. because of cord-cutting. 

Also Read: Canada’s Rogers Licenses More Comcast Tech, Including a ‘New Device Powered by Entertainment OS’

Rogers said in a release that it “will work with Canadian distribution partners to make the content widely available,” with the ultimate goal to blend linear distribution with streaming options like its service, Citytv+.

“We’re evolving our business to reflect where consumers are going, bringing the best mix of U.S. and Canadian content to audiences in the way they want to watch it," said Colette Watson, president of Rogers Sports & Media, in a statement. “This investment also advances our position as a strong Canadian broadcaster that can compete with foreign streamers.”  

Canada’s Rogers Communications, which has licensed Comcast’s X1 video platform technology since 2016, announced Wednesday that it has signed a 10-year agreement with the American cable giant to use a lot more of its tech. 

The bounty will include what Rogers describes as a “new device powered by Entertainment OS,” which on the surface sounds like Xumo Stream Box, the streaming gadget jointly launched last year by Comcast and Charter Communications that runs the former’s TVOS. 

So it is the Xumo Stream Box, which is also being deployed by Cox Communications and Mediacom Communications, right?

A Rogers rep told us that “commercial details” about the video product “will be announced later this year.”

Meanwhile, Rogers said it's also licensing Comcast’s “10G” wireline internet gateway, as well as its Storm-Ready WiFi product, a gateway introduced last summer that includes backup battery power and a system for switching from wireline to cellular internet connectivity. 

Rogers said it’s also licensing various Xfinity-branded home security tech from Comcast. 

“Our partnership with Comcast builds on our legacy of bringing Canadians the best networks, entertainment and services in the world,” Tony Staffieri, president and CEO of Rogers Communications, said in a statement. “Canadians want to be connected to the best entertainment, anywhere, without interruption and we’re proud to partner with Comcast to make this a reality.”

Rogers is the largest wireless company in Canada, with 11.6 million customers at the end of 2023. But it’s also still one of the country’s largest cable companies, with 4.2 million “retail internet” users and 2.25 million remaining linear video subscribers

A 19-hour July 8 broadband service outage for Rogers Communications customers that disrupted airlines, banking and 911 calls has prompted the Canadian government to investigate the matter, a move that some say could throw a wrench into Rogers’ pending C$20 billion merger with Shaw Communications. 

Rogers, the largest telecom company in Canada, blamed the outage on a network system failure that occurred during a planned maintenance update. In a statement on its corporate website on July 9, Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri said the problem had been addressed and its systems are now operational. 

“We know how much our customers rely on our networks and I sincerely apologize,” Staffieri said in the statement. “We’re particularly troubled that some customers could not reach emergency services and we are addressing the issue as an urgent priority.”

He added that all customers would receive a credit automatically applied to their accounts for the outage. Some reports put the cost of those credits at between C$65 million and C$75 million. 

But the biggest impact could come in the form of more intense scrutiny of the Shaw deal. Canadian regulators already are looking closely at the merger — and in June, both Rogers and Shaw said they would delay the closing of the deal as they worked out any issues the government may have. 

The latest service outage has caused some regulators to wonder if it’s a good idea to foster further consolidation in the industry. About 90% of the Canadian telecom market is controlled by three companies, Rogers, BCE and Telus.   

In a press conference on July 11, Canada Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said he directed Canadian telecom companies to help each other during emergencies and develop protocols to keep customers informed during outages. According to Reuters, Champagne has give the three telecom giants 60 days to enter inter a formal agreement. 

In a statement, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) chairperson and CEO Ian Scott said the regulatory body ordered Rogers to answer a series of questions concerning the outage and provide a comprehensive explanation as to why it occurred. Rogers has until July 22 to respond.  

“This widespread network outage not only disrupted Canadians and Canadian businesses across the country, it prevented access to services such as 911 and emergency/public alerting as well as other critical infrastructure services,” Scott said in the statement. “The CRTC is requesting a detailed account from Rogers as to ‘why’ and ‘how’ this happened, as well as what measures Rogers is putting in place to prevent future outages. We take the safety, security, and wellness of Canadians very seriously and we are responsible for ensuring that Canadians have access at all times to a reliable and efficient communications system.”

According to Reuters, citing merger arbitrage traders, the chances that the deal would be completed fell to 62% on Monday (July 11) from 88% a week prior.  

Shares of Rogers fell 5% on July 11 to $45.15 each. The stock rose 2.5% on July 12 to $46.27 each, sliding 0.2% in early trading July 13 to $46.17 per share. 

Shaw stock fell 4.6% on July 11 to $27.95 per share and continued to slide in subsequent trading, priced at $26.24 each on the afternoon of July 13, down 1.2%. ■ 

More than a year after they unveiled a merger valued at $20.6 billion that would create a cable and telecom powerhouse north of the border, Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications have agreed to put their union on hold as Canadian regulators grapple with the competitive aspects of the deal.

Rogers agreed to buy Shaw in a cash and assumed-debt deal valued at C$26 billion (US $20.6 billion) in March 2021. Among the benefits of the pairing were faster deployment of 5G wireless networks in Canada. Rogers, already the country’s largest provider of 5G service, pledged to invest C$2.5 billion (US$2 billion) in 5G networks across Western Canada, creating up to 3,000 new jobs. In addition, Rogers said it would create a C$1 billion (US$800 million) fund dedicated to connecting rural, remote and Indigenous communities to high-speed internet across the four Western provinces and spend another C$3 billion (US$2.4 billion) to support additional network, services and technology investments.

The deal was expected to close in the first half of 2022, but over the past few weeks Canadian regulators have expressed doubts about the deal. On May 9, Canada’s Competition Bureau said it was seeking to block the merger, “in an effort to protect Canadians from higher prices, poorer service quality and fewer choices, particularly in wireless services.”   

On May 30, both Rogers and Shaw said they would postpone the closing of the merger while they worked with regulators to iron out any concerns. 

“Rogers and Shaw strongly believe the Transaction is in the best interests of Canadian consumers, businesses and the Canadian economy, and that a settlement is the best path forward in ensuring that the benefits of the Transaction are fully and expeditiously realized,” the companies said in a press release.

The Canadian government’s main concern appears to be the combination of Rogers’ and Shaw’s wireless businesses. In the May 9 press release announcing its intentions, the Competition Bureau said that it has worked diligently over the past several years to diversify the Canadian wireless business, currently dominated by three operators -- Rogers, Bell Canada and Telus, with a combined 87% share of the market. Teaming Rogers with Shaw, according to the agency, would give the former access to the fourth largest wireless carrier’s 2.1 million Freedom Mobile customers, widening the gap between it and its closest competitors.

But what concerns the agency most is the impact the deal could have on pricing. According to the filing, Shaw has doubled its subscriber base since launching service in 2017 by aggressively pricing its service, offering bigger data allowances and other innovations. According to the agency, by its mere presence in the market, Freedom Mobile has forced the three largest carriers to retain customers, keeping prices down after they had been rising year-over-year.

“The Bureau’s investigation has concluded that competition between Rogers and Shaw has already been lessened – and the harm to competition will only worsen if the proposed transaction is allowed to proceed,” the agency said. “For this reason, the Bureau has filed an application for an order to block the proposed transaction.” 

Both Rogers and Shaw have said they would divest the Freedom Mobile business as part of the merger and that the process is advancing. Some reports indicate that Freedom’s buyer could be Xplornet Communications, a rural internet service provider owned by Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners. Stonepeak made news last year after buying Astound Broadband from TPG in a deal valued at $8.1 billion.

While the Competition Bureau’s objection to the merger could prolong the deal closing, few in the Canadian press believe it will quash the transaction, with several reports pointing to a recent attempt by the Bureau to block a merger between oil & gas waste services companies  Secure Energy Services and Tervita Corp., that was ultimately consummated.

Investors don’t seem too concerned either. Rogers stock was down 5% ($2.62 each) to $49.36 on May 9 when the Competition Bureau’s objection was first made known, but has climbed back, closing at $51.26 per share on June 2. Shaw stock has had the same trajectory -- it was down 8% ($2.35 each)  on May 9 to $26.73 per share, but has gained a lot of that back in subsequent trading, closing at $28.39 on June 2. ■

Comcast paid $100 million for Xumo in February 2020, amid the shopping bonanza for ad-supported streaming services that occurred a few years back. 

But unlike Paramount's Global's $340 million purchase of Pluto TV and Fox's $440 million Tubi buy, we haven't heard much --nay, anything at all -- about international expansion for Xumo.

That is, until now. Sort of. 

Comcast has struck a deal with Rogers Communications to put a customized version of the Xumo app on the Canadian cable operator's Comcast-designed Ignite TV and Ignite SmartStream video systems. 

Rogers still has more than 2 million TV/video subscribers, and the cable operator's Ignite TV is based on Comcast's X1 platform.

Xumo offers more than 200 digital channels of free, including Radio Canada, CBC News, Xumo Free Movies, ABC News Live, The Johnny Carson Show, Free Action Movies, America’s Test Kitchen, beIN Sports Xtra, batteryPop.

Comcast said Xumo had 24 million active users back in 2020, but the No. 1 U.S. cable company has been close to the vest about the platform since. 

The free-to-consumer service is one of the lynchpins in the video service JV being developed by Comcast and Charter. 

“The launch of the Xumo app on Rogers Ignite TV and Ignite SmartStream is an important milestone in our growing app portfolio,” noted Chris Hall, senior VP of product at Xumo. “Canadian viewers will now have access to even more free programming directly from Rogers, and it will be seamlessly integrated within the experience to make search and discovery easy.”

Rogers Communications chairman Ed Rogers, less than two weeks after winning a court battle that backed his moves to replace five members of his board of directors, said late Tuesday that company CEO Joe Natale has stepped aside in favor of former chief financial officer Tony Staffieri, a move that didn't go down well with Rogers's mother and two sisters, who are also top shareholders in the Canadian telecom giant. 

Rogers Communications said Nov. 16 that Natale stepped down as CEO and Staffieri was named interim CEO of the company. Staffieri resigned in September after it was revealed in press reports that he had accidentally pocket-dialed Natale while he was having discussions with former Rogers legal counsel David Miller to oust the former CEO. Staffieri was backed by Ed Rogers in the attempted coup, but the scandal forced the communications giant’s board to hold an emergency meeting where they ousted Ed Rogers as chairman and threw their support to Natale. Staffieri resigned as CFO on Sept. 29. 

Less than two weeks later, on Oct. 12, Rogers’ board said it had replaced Ed Rogers as chairman, naming board member John MacDonald in his place. 

Although the board decision to push him out was reportedly engineered by his own mother, Ed Rogers, who also serves as chairman of the family trust that controls 97.5% of Rogers Communications voting stock, fired five independent members of the company's board of directors and reinstated himself as chairman. 

That action touched off a public battle between Ed, his mother Loretta and two sisters Martha Rogers and Melinda Rogers-Hixon, who claimed Ed’s actions were illegal and violated the company charter. On Nov. 5, the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ed Rogers, who then said in a statement that Natale had the support of the Roger Communications board.

That didn’t last long. On Nov. 16, Rogers Communications issued a press release that said Natale would no longer be CEO effective that day and that Staffieri would replace him in the interim. Rogers said it would immediately begin its search for a permanent CEO, adding that Staffieri would also be considered.

Also: Rogers Communications Ruling Family Embroiled in Real-Life Succession Drama 

The shakeup comes as Rogers’s $20-billion takeover of Shaw Communications continues to wind its way through the Canadian regulatory approval process. While that deal is expected to be completed by the first half of next year, and regulators insist they are concentrating on competitive issues, not family squabbles in their decision-making, other observers have said the ongoing drama has to have some effect on the deal. 

“Tony is amongst the most highly regarded and seasoned telecommunications executives in the industry and was a key part of the Shaw deal,” Ed Rogers said in the press release. “His incredible work ethic, track record for results, focus on long-term strategic growth, driving an excellent experience for our customers and employees, and strong operational execution will serve us well. The company has an exceptional set of assets and the Board has full confidence in his ability to lead Rogers during this period.”

According to Reuters, Rogers board member Robert Gemmell said in a statement that the company was had tried to reach a “constructive working relationship” with Natale through the Shaw merger, but failed to reach a deal. 

In a statement issued to the Toronto Star on Nov. 16, Ed Rogers’s mother and siblings had a different interpretation of Staffieri’s appointment, saying they were disappointed that “Edward has driven the termination of Joe Natale as RCI’s CEO."

“Joe is a world-class telecom leader, and as we have always said, we believe he’s the right person to lead RCI as chief executive,” the statement said. “The three of us voted against this misguided decision, which creates great uncertainty for RCI and its employees, customers, sports fans and shareholders, not to mention the Shaw transaction.”

Shaw representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ■

Just days after a British Columbia Court ruled in favor of Rogers Communications Inc. chairman Edward Rogers’ moves to fire the company’s board of directors and replace it with his own slate, the Canadian telecom giant said it would not formally appeal the court’s decision.

Edward Rogers replaced five members of Rogers Communications’ board on Oct. 21, after the board moved to fire him over his behind the scenes moves to oust company CEO Joseph Natale. In addition to jettisoning the board, Edward Rogers, who also is chairman of the Rogers family trust that controls 97.5% of the vote of the telecom giant, also reinstated himself as chairman. The company and remaining members of his family -- mother Loretta and two of his sisters Martha Rogers and Melinda Rogers-Hixon -- claimed that Edward Rogers had violated Canadian corporate law and company bylaws by removing board members without a formal vote. Edward Rogers filed a suit against the company in October to uphold his actions, on which the BC court ruled on Nov. 5.

Also: Rogers Family Embroiled in Real-Life Succession Drama

In that written ruling, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick said Ed Rogers had sufficient authority as head of the Rogers Control Trust, adding that with 97.5% of the vote, his actions were “easily passed” by a special majority of Class A shareholders. 

In her ruling, Justice Fitzpatrick pointed to the highly public battle between family members, pointing to a flurry of critical twitter postings by Martha Rogers and press claims that Loretta Rogers was duped by her son in first agreeing that CEO Natale should be removed. 

“These family squabbles are an interesting backdrop to this dispute that would be more in keeping with a Shakespearean drama,” Fitzpatrick wrote. “They have no doubt added a voyeuristic element on the part of many into the lives of a very wealthy Canadian family and this aspect of the dispute has driven some media coverage. However, in my view, the family issues are of little assistance in determining the narrow legal issue raised and certainly do not need to be addressed or resolved in this Court. At best, they are a distraction.”

Rogers Communications initially said it planned to appeal the decision, with Loretta, Martha and Melinda issuing a statement that called the ruling a “black eye for good governance and shareholder rights and sets a dangerous new precedent for Canadian capital markets by allowing the independent directors of a public company to be removed with the stroke of a pen.”

But the company apparently changed its mind after Edward Rogers issued his own statement that said Natale has the board’s support as CEO.  

“Much has been written about Rogers CEO Joe Natale and his future,” Edward Rogers said in the statement. “Mr. Natale remains CEO and a director of Rogers Communications and has the Board's support. Our focus must be on the business, a return to stability, and closing our transformational merger with Shaw Communications.”

In a brief statement Nov. 7, Rogers’ board of directors said it “will not seek an appeal of last week’s British Columbia Supreme Court ruling.” 

In his Friday statement, Edward Rogers appeared to be willing to bury the hatchet with his family and get on with finalizing RCI’s pending takeover of Shaw Communications.

“The steps I have taken in the face of constant attacks in the media were difficult for me and my family,” Edward Rogers said in a statement issued after the ruling. “As Chair of the Rogers Control Trust, my responsibility is to ensure that the company is properly governed and effectively managed. I take that responsibility very seriously. Our family has disagreements like every other family. I am hopeful we will resolve those differences privately, as any family would. I know every member of our family wants the brightest future for Rogers Communications.”

Former Rogers Communications chairman Edward Rogers fired the latest salvo in his family’s ongoing Succession-like drama, filing a lawsuit in a Canadian court to uphold his decision to reconstitute the telecom giant’s board, a move family members strongly opposed.

“This is Canada’s Succession right now,” Richard Powers, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, told CBC News earlier this week, referring to the HBO show. “The fact that it's playing out in the media makes it all that more intriguing.“

According to a statement by the Rogers Communications board of directors, the British Columbia Supreme Court will hold a hearing on Nov. 1 to hear submissions by the company and the Rogers Control Trust (the Rogers family entity that controls 97% of the telecom company’s voting stock) regarding the legality of Edward Rogers’s attempt to replace five members of the Rogers Communications board. Edward Rogers, who also is chairman of the Rogers Control Trust, has argued that his action is compliant with British Columbia law and corporate bylaws. His family, sisters Martha Rogers and Melinda Rogers-Hixon and his mother Loretta Rogers have argued that the action is invalid because it was done through a written resolution and not a formal meeting of shareholders. 

“The company welcomes the opportunity for the Court to consider the importance to shareholders and all stakeholders of conducting a shareholders meeting to change the board of directors,” Rogers Communications said in a statement.

The ongoing Rogers family soap opera surfaced back in September, when it was learned that Edward Rogers was maneuvering behind the scenes to replace Rogers Communications CEO Joseph Natale with his confidant, chief financial officer Anthony Staffieri. But according to reports in the Toronto Globe & Mail, that plan — which also included the ouster of nine other Rogers executives -- was brought to light prematurely when Staffieri accidentally pocket-dialed Natale while discussing the corporate coup attempt with former company legal counsel David Miller. Natale contacted an independent director at the company, which triggered an emergency board meeting on Sept. 26, where the majority threw its support to Natale and his team. Three days later, on Sept. 29, Staffieri resigned as CFO and was replaced by long-time Rogers finance executive Paulina Molnar.

But it didn’t stop there. The Rogers board of directors, at the urging of board member and Loretta Rogers, moved to oust her son Edward as chairman, replacing him on Oct. 21 with long-time lead director and chair of the board’s corporate governance committee, John MacDonald. Not to be outdone, Edward Rogers fired five independent members of the 14-member board on Oct. 21 and replaced them with nominees of the Rogers Control Trust, which moved to return him to the Rogers Communications chairman seat.

“We are in the unusual position in which there seems to be two boards of Rogers Communications, the board we knew last week and Edward’s new board. A very confusing situation,” McMaster University business professor Marvin Ryder said in an interview.

Drama Coincides with Deal-Making

The turmoil also comes as Rogers Communications is winding through the government approval process for its $20 billion takeover of Shaw Communications. Rogers had hoped the deal would close in the first half of 2022, and on Sept. 28 the Canada Competition Bureau issued a Request for Information asking for input regarding the effect of the merger on mobile services, residential and business broadband and the supply of programming to television service providers. 

In an email message to Multichannel News, Canada Competition Bureau senior communications advisor Jayme Albert said the agency is aware of the media coverage of the governance issues at Rogers, but that it is concentrating on competitive issues.

“The Bureau’s objective in its review of the proposed Rogers/Shaw merger is to investigate whether it is likely to result in a substantial lessening or prevention of competition,” Albert wrote in the email message. “The Bureau is focused on assessing the impacts of the proposed transaction on mobile wireless, wireline internet and broadcasting services, as indicated in the Bureau’s recent public Request for Information. As the Bureau is required by law to conduct its work confidentially, I am unable to comment further.”

Ryder, the professor, said while the government may not be considering the Rogers management turmoil in its approval process, the family imbroglio could have other effects on the Shaw deal.

“This whole Shaw takeover is very much in question,” Ryder said. “I can almost guarantee you that other potential suitors for Shaw, assuming the deal was done, they just disappeared into the woodwork. Now that this is all back on the table, I guarantee you the Shaw family is getting phone calls.”

Ryder said potential suitors could include smaller Canadian telecom companies like Telus and American companies like Verizon and T-Mobile. 

Shaw representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Ryder added that while Natale isn’t the perfect CEO — Rogers’s performance has been steady, even though the pandemic when its competition was adding hundreds of thousands of subscribers — his real value could be in securing financing for the Shaw deal. Now with the family’s dirty laundry being aired almost daily in the Canadian press, that could give some potential lenders pause.

“Rogers, in the last year, has not had tremendous performance,“ Ryder said, adding that although the company has added about 175,000 new wireless subscribers in Q3, its total revenue and profitability hasn‘t risen much. “Me, as a business school professor, knowing that we've been on a rollercoaster because of COVID, I'm not sure I would be upset with performance like that.”

Ryder added that while other telecom companies performed better as customers stayed home during the pandemic, “I’m not sure that's enough to have triggered all of the drama we've seen over the last week-and-a-half.”

According to reports, in the Oct. 26 suit Edward Rogers said he lost confidence in Natale’s ability to lead Rogers through the Shaw deal and that his mother agreed with him, speaking before the board in late September to back up her son’s assertion. Loretta Rogers, in a statement, said she had been given inaccurate information by her son and board member Alan Horn, and after hearing from independent directors, changed her mind and backed Natale.  

Sparring Siblings

Ed Rogers’s actions also have opened a rift in the family, with his sisters Melinda Rogers-Hixon and Martha Rogers and his mother coming out publicly in support of Natale. 

In an Oct. 24 statement, Roger-Hixon, Martha and Loretta Rogers, along with board members MacDonald, John Clappison, David Peterson, Bonnie Brooks and Ellis Jacob, said they “unequivocally support Joe Natale as CEO and support his management team,” adding that they remain board members and constitute a majority of board members of the company. “No other group of individuals has any authority to purport to act as the Board of Directors of Rogers Communications.”

In a series of tweets, Martha Rogers lambasted her brother, saying his self-reappointment as chairman “should be taken as seriously as if he appointed himself King of England.” She also likened his behind-the-scenes meetings to playdates with the “Old Guard,” adding that her late father, Rogers Communications founder Ted Rogers, would “be so disappointed to see how Ed and his puppet masters are behaving, destroying the company he built.”   

While the battle is headed to court, that might only delay the inevitable: Martha Rogers said in later tweets that the family would “spend every penny defending the company, employees & Ted’s wishes, nothing you can do will deter us. Bring. It. On.”  

Bloomberg opinion columnist and former Goldman Sachs investment banker and M&A lawyer Matt Levine wrote that the Rogers sisters and their mother may have won the battle in removing Ed from the Rogers board, but lost the war.

“Edward Rogers lost at the board but won at the trust, meaning that he will eventually get to kick his sisters and mother off the board, reinstate himself as chairman and fire the CEO, but meanwhile his sisters and mother and the CEO probably have a few months to run the company and try to head him off,” Levine wrote.

Ryder wasn’t convinced the outcome would be that simple, adding that although Ed Rogers may have his own backers on the Trust board, Loretta Rogers’s influence should not be underestimated. The 82-year-old widow is the daughter of late British politician and Governor of Bermuda John Roland Robinson, who gave Loretta $450,000 shortly after she married Ted in 1963 to help finance his son-in-law's business endeavors. 

“Part of Ted Rogers’s success was his wife,” Ryder said. He said Loretta Rogers’s money was what helped her husband Ted form the company in the first place. “It’s really her money that is the backbone of Rogers.”

It appears that the ongoing soap opera is far from over. Just how it ultimately plays out will depend on how long Ed Rogers can hold on to his board support and how long the companies are willing to let this Canadian version of Festivus (the airing of the grievances) continue.

Sportsnet is relaunching its SN Now streaming service, offering fans a personalized experience created by technology from Firstlight Media and Deltatre.

With sports rights fees going up, traditional TV broadcasts are being upgraded to make them more attractive to fans, with features based on their interests from advanced statistics to community chats to gamification and ultimately gambling.

Sportsnet, part of Canada’s Rogers Communications, launched SN Now, the first sports TV channel streamed in North America direct to consumers in 2016. 

The new SN Now will provide enhanced stream quality and reliability, personalized content, stat overlays and other features.

“Our new partnerships with Deltatre and Firstlight Media will help make Canada’s best sports streaming product even better,” said Bart Yabsley, president, Sportsnet. “The all-new SN Now will engage our fans with more games, the latest technological innovations, more exclusive content, and a personalized experience on the most reliable platform available anywhere in the world.”

Andre Christensen, CEO and co-founder of Firstlight Media said the new SN Now is able to offer a personalized sportscast because it is cloud-native, riding on the Microsoft Azure cloud.

Firstlight built the back-end platform for SN Now. “In all previous generations of OTT, it's’ been pretty much one-size fits all. The way you look at the game is the same way I get the game,” Christensen said. “Given the changes that have happened over the last couple of years from a technology point of view, this is the first time you’re truly able to create personalized fan experiences.” 

Christensen said the system is based on a fifth generation streaming architecture and Kubernetes to deliver microservices.

Those experiences are based on data about what content the viewer wants and how he wants to experience the game. “This allows [Rogers] to curate the experiences,” he said.

Firstlight’s back end is integrated with Deltatre’s front end, which gives Sportsnet control over what’s sent to viewers.

“The whole point here is to bring efficiency for the internal scheduling, marketing and promotions teams, enabling them to react in real time,” said Alex Drosin, head of worldwide business development, Video Experiences, Deltatre.

A more personalized viewing experience creates opportunities for more engaging promotion and advertising. 

“Sponsorships can be laid in and integrated from a premium vantage point,” Drosin said. “There’s more efficiency with the way they can showcase sponsors or create special promotions around teams or highlight specific profiles of players. The versatility is just night and day.”

The new SN Now is expected to debut in the fall, when hockey season starts. Additional features will be added going forward, the companies said.

“The ability to build world-class consumer experiences will increasingly involve great partners from around the globe. As the pace of change continues to accelerate, building the future can’t be done alone,” said Alfredo Tan, senior VP, strategy, data, & products at Rogers Sports & Media, Sportsnet’s parent company. “These partnerships are just some of many ways Sportsnet is continuing to foster innovation to lead sports and media into the future.” 

Shaw Communications stock began to slip March 18, down nearly 2% in midday trading, as reports began to mount that the Canadian telecom company’s planned $20 billion merger with Rogers Communications could get some regulatory pushback. 

Rogers said March 15 that it had agreed to purchase Shaw in a cash and assumed debt deal worth about $20 billion. The transaction, which valued Shaw shares at C$40.50 ($32.55), was approved by both companies’ boards of directors and was expected to be completed in the first half of 2022. 

Shaw’s stock immediately rose after news broke -- it went as high as $28.05 on March 15, a 46.5% increase from its March 12 close -- but the stock was still far off from Rogers’ offering price. That the stock peaked at $28.17 per share on March 16 (13% below the offering price), and that gap continues to widen -- Shaw stock traded as low as $27.54 per share on March 18 before closing at $27.55, down 1.7% -- has caused some analysts to wonder whether the deal will face some harsh scrutiny. 

Also Read: Altice USA to Buy Morris Broadband for $310 Million

The deal will be reviewed by three Canadian regulatory agencies -- the independent Competition Bureau of Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, and the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. According to reports throughout the Canadian press, the main issue appears to be the removal of a fourth wireless carrier -- a sticking point with Canadian regulators -- and even Rogers’ promises to keep prices level for Shaw’s Freedom Mobile plan for three years and boost deployment of 5G may not be enough.

Rogers has pledged to invest C$2.5 billion ($2 billion) in 5G networks across Western Canada, creating up to 3,000 new jobs. In addition, Rogers promised to create a  C$1 billion ($800 million) fund dedicated to connecting rural, remote and Indigenous communities to high-speed internet across the four Western provinces and spend another C$3 billion ($2.4 billion) to support additional network, services and technology investments 

While the regulatory agencies have pledged to scrutinize the deal, some Canadian politicians have expressed doubt about the benefits of the merger.

“Big telecom companies are gouging Canadians and continuing to make massive profits in a time where most families are struggling to get by. A merger between two of Canada’s biggest providers will just make it worse,” New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh said in a statement after the deal was announced.  

On the conservative side, MP Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Jobs and Industry, called for hearings into the proposed deal. 

“Some argue the Rogers-Shaw deal means more investment, others that it means less competition,” Poilievre said in a statement. “The only way to know for sure [is] through careful and intense debate. Conservatives want the Industry Committee to hear from customers, workers, business leaders, engineers, economists and other experts to get a complete understanding of the proposed deal.”

Poilievre added that the deal, which would create a C$50 billion telecom powerhouse with C$20 billion in annual revenue, 33,000 employees and about 13 million wireless customers, would be important in any era, but is especially critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced many Canadians to work from home. 

“If some communities cannot get fast, affordable connections, their people will be left behind.” he continued. “Conversely, fast, affordable wireless combined with remote work could revive struggling rural, remote and indigenous economies like we have not seen since the urbanization phenomenon began. For it to happen, we can no longer accept poor internet at high prices.”   

Canadians pay some of the highest cell phone bills in the world. According to a report by Finnish telecom research company Rewheel, the Big Three Canadian wireless service providers -- Bell, Telus and Rogers -- had the least competitive rates globally. Other reports have compared Canadian wireless rates between 15% and 40% higher than in the U.S. 

It has become such an issue that reducing Canadian wireless bills was a key part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's 2019 reelection platform. In March, Trudeau made good on that promise, requiring telecom operators in the country to reduce their charges by 25% over the next two years.

Shares of Shaw Communications rose more than 40% on the Toronto Stock Exchange Monday in the wake of its $20 billion purchase by Rogers Communications, but the stock price was still well below Rogers’ offer as questions persist around the deal’s potential impact on wireless competition in Canada. 

Shaw shares closed at C$33.85 each on the Toronto Exchange March 15, up 41% or C$9.95 each while Rogers stock rose 3.4% (C$2.02 each) to C$61.57 per share. Both stocks are also traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and saw similar gains. Shaw was up 41% ($7.93) to $27.10 per share on the NYSE, while Rogers increased 3.5% ($1.69) to $49.42 each.     

Rogers agreed to purchase Shaw for C$40.50 ($32.40) per share (about $16 billion in total) in cash, a 70% premium to its March 12 close, and the assumption of C$6 billion ($4.8 billion) in debt. The $20 billion deal would create a wireless communications powerhouse with about 13 million customers in Canada.

Both companies also own cable TV operations, but most reports point to possible regulatory concerns on the wireless side of the business. Rogers already is the largest wireless service provider in Canada with about 10.9 million subscribers. Shaw is the fourth largest -- behind BCE and Telus Communications -- with about 2 million wireless customers.  

The Canadian government has been sensitive to competitive issues in the wireless market. Last March Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government ordered the three largest wireless service providers to slash prices in their middle range plans by 25% within two years or face regulatory action. 

As part of the Shaw deal, Rogers pledged not to raise prices for Shaw’s mid-range Freedom Mobile plan for three years after the deal closes. It also said it would invest about C$2.5 billion over five years to speed up construction and deployment of 5G networks.   

On a conference call with analysts to discuss the transaction, Rogers CEO Joseph Natale said it was “too early” to determine whether there would be regulatory issues, but that he was confident the deal would win approval.

The transaction will be examined by at least three Canadian government agencies -- the independent Competition Bureau of Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, and the department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.

“We have been clear that greater affordability, competition and innovation in Canadian telecommunications are as important to us as a government as they are to Canadians concerned about their cell phone bills,” ISED minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Francois-Philippe Champagne said in a statement.  “These goals will be front and centre in analyzing the implications of today’s news. This transaction will be reviewed by the independent Competition Bureau of Canada, the CRTC, as well as ISED and we won’t presuppose the outcomes of these processes.”

In a blog post, Morningstar Research wrote that while there may be reasons regulators would want to nix the deal, it didn't see a strong reason to block it. 

“Most importantly, the companies are not major competitors -- 80% of Shaw’s revenue and 90% of its EBITDA come from its wireline business, which has essentially no overlap with that of Rogers,” Morningstar wrote. “In wireless, we estimate Shaw has only 4%-5% national market share, leaving it a minor player based on that metric.”

But the deal would remove the fourth largest player from the Canadian wireless market, which could cause some regulators concerns. 

“Regulatory actions and rules of spectrum auctions indicate regulators prefer four national wireless competitors, and Shaw has made major strides in recent years to position itself as the fourth,” Morningstar wrote. “Although Shaw’s wireless business remains relatively tiny, it has shaken up the industry. Most notably, we think it is responsible for moving each of the major companies to offer unlimited data plans and keep pricing down with its consumer-friendly and innovative deals.” 

That dilemma could be solved in any number of ways, including requiring the company to divest of some assets, similar to what the Competition Bureau required BCE to do when it bought Manitoba Telecom Services in 2017. 

Rogers Communications said it has agreed to merge with telecom rival Shaw Communications in a $20 billion deal that will bring together the two largest cable operators in the country and create a Canadian wireless powerhouse. The deal, which was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies, is expected to close in the first half of 2022, pending regulatory approvals. 

Rogers and Shaw have been mostly friendly competitors over the years, swapping assets occasionally as Rogers concentrated on Ontario and Shaw focused on the Western provinces. Both companies are relatively similar as wireline service providers, as Shaw has about 5.2 million wireline revenue generating units (RGUs) and Rogers about 5.1 million. Their main difference has been on the wireless front. Rogers is the largest Canadian wireless company with 10.9 million customers, while Shaw is No. 4 with 2 million customers.

According to the transaction, Rogers will pay Shaw shareholders about C$40.50 ($32.40) per share in cash, a 70% premium to its Friday close, and assume about C$6 billion ($4.8 billion) in Shaw debt. The Shaw family will receive 23.6 million shares of Rogers stock in the transaction, making them one of the largest shareholders of the combined company.    

In a press release, both companies pointed to the wireless opportunities the merger would bring, mainly allowing Rogers, already with the largest 5G network in Canada, to expand that technology throughout the country. Once the transaction is complete, the new Rogers plans to invest C$2.5 billion ($2 billion) in 5G networks across Western Canada, creating up to 3,000 new jobs. In addition, Rogers pledged to create a  C$1 billion ($800 million) fund dedicated to connecting rural, remote and Indigenous communities to high-speed Internet across the four Western provinces and spend another C$3 billion ($2.4 billion) to support additional network, services and technology investments    

“Western Canada is a major driver of our national economy and together we will have the scale, expertise and commitment to deliver the technology infrastructure needed to keep local communities connected, businesses competitive and attract new investment,” Rogers CEO Joe Natale said. “We’re at a critical inflection point where generational investments are needed to make Canada-wide 5G a reality. 5G is about nation-building; it’s vital to boosting productivity and will help close the connectivity gap faster in rural, remote and Indigenous communities.” 

Rogers has been on the lookout to grow through acquisition for months. In September it teamed up with U.S. cable company Altice USA in a $7.8 billion bid to purchase Cogeco Communications: Altice would have assumed Cogeco’s U.S. cable operations. That bid was rejected by Cogeco’s controlling shareholder, the Audet family. 

“Today’s announcement brings two iconic Canadian family-founded businesses together with the expertise, combined assets, and scale to deliver the next generation of telecommunications to Canadian consumers and businesses. This is a transformational combination; and extends our company’s long legacy of innovation, entrepreneurship, and dedication to world-class service for decades to come,” Rogers Communications chairman Edward Rogers said in a press release.  

While Shaw has managed to hold its own -- it added 101,000 wireless customers in its fiscal first quarter ended Nov. 30 --  in April, the company laid off about 1,000 workers, mostly in its retail and sales operations. Its founder, executive chairman and former CEO JR Shaw died in March 2020. 

“Our two companies have been successful because of the foresight and vision of two great founders who were driven by their unrelenting pioneering spirit and entrepreneurial values,” Shaw Communications executive chairman and CEO Brad Shaw said in a press release. “Without a doubt, my father would be proud of this moment, combining forces with the company founded by his old friend to deliver more Canadians world class connectivity, more choice, and better value. While unlocking tremendous shareholder value, combining these two great companies also creates a truly national provider with the capacity to invest greater resources expeditiously to build the wireline and wireless networks that all Canadians need for the long term. This transaction will create benefits for generations to come.”

Altice USA officially threw in the towel in its months-long pursuit of Cogeco Communications, saying Wednesday that it will not pursue its bid for the Canadian telecom company.

Altice USA joined with Canadian telecom giant Rogers Communications on Sept. 2 to launch a $7.8 billion bid for Cogeco.  As part of the deal, Altice would pay about $3.6 billion for Cogeco’s U.S. cable assets (Atlantic Broadband) while Rogers would pay $4.2 billion for Cogeco’s Canadian telecom businesses. That offer was rejected by Cogeco’s controlling shareholder -- Gestion Audem -- but Altice sweetened its bid on Oct. 19, increasing its price for Atlantic Broadband to $3.9 billion. While that bid was also rejected, Altice said it would give the company until Nov. 18 to officially answer. 

Related: Altice and Cogeco: He’s Just Not That Into You 

Altice USA had held out little hope of a deal materializing after the second rejection, but kept its fingers crossed. But with no deal in sight, on Nov. 18, Altice USA officially called off its pursuit. 

“Our offer to acquire Cogeco in order to own Atlantic Broadband has expired and we do not intend to extend it,” Altice USA said in a statement. “We remain committed to our growth strategy and continue to focus on opportunities to drive value for our shareholders.”

That includes continuing to look at both organic and M&A opportunities to grow the footprint. 

Earlier on Wednesday, Rogers CEO Joe Natale said at an industry conference that he was disappointed that he never got to negotiate with Gestion Audem’s ruling Audet family. He added that he still believes the deal would have been good for both companies.

“We’re disappointed that we didn’t get the ability to engage with either the Audet family or the Cogeco boards on what is a terrific offer, a highly valued offer,” Rogers CEO Joe Natale said at the RBC Capital Markets Global Technology, Internet, Media and Telecommunications Virtual Conference. “But it just wasn’t meant to be, there wasn’t the appetite to follow through or pursue it on their part.” 

While Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei is still holding out hope that its latest offer to buy Canadian cable operator Cogeco will be accepted, he is cognizant that right now, the odds don’t look so good.

Altice USA made its first offer for Cogeco on Sept. 2, a $7.8 billion joint offer with Canadian telecom giant Rogers Communications. Altice would buy Cogeco’s U.S. operations -- Atlantic Broadband -- for $3.6 billion, while Rogers would snap up its Canadian businesses for $4.2 billion. That offer was quickly rejected by Gestion Audem, the holding company for Cogeco’s founding Audet family’s controlling interest in the company. In rejecting that offer, Cogeco executive chairman Louis Audet, also the controlling member of Gestion Audem, said the family had no intention of selling its interest, adding that its stance was “not a negotiating tactic.” 

That didn’t stop Altice from sweetening its offer by about $600 million to $8.4 billion -- $3.9 million for Atlantic Broadband -- on Oct. 18,   adding that the company had until Nov. 18 to accept the bid. Gestion Audem wasted little time to reject the new offer, adding that same day that “Since this is apparently not registering with Rogers and Altice, we repeat today that this is not a negotiating strategy, but a definitive refusal.”

Goei, during a conference call with analysts to discuss Q3 results on Thursday, admitted that it looks like a Cogeco deal won’t materialize, but he wasn’t folding all of his cards just yet.

“We’re very cognizant that the controlling shareholder needs to be acquiesced,” Goei said on the conference call. “Based on his rhetoric and his statements to date, I think it's fair to say that there is a low chance of us collectively with Rogers being able to move forward on this project. Formally we’ve got until Nov. 18, so we’ll see if anything shakes out.”

Although it seems unlikely that Atlantic Broadband will be joining the Altice fold anytime soon, Goei said he was encouraged by the M&A opportunities that exist in the U.S. market, particularly with smaller operators. He pointed to Altice’s July purchase of Service Electric Cable TV of New Jersey, which he said has grown since the purchase with little extra effort.

“We are out there looking at a handful of things,” Goei said, adding that given Altice USA’s 21-state footprint, there are several opportunities to find small systems contiguous to its operating area. 

“It’s not necessarily that easy to unlock all of this, but given the environment, given the interest rate environment, given that size does really matter here in terms of getting operational synergies and investing heavily in technology and customer service, it is starting to percolate that some of the smaller operators, the Mom and Pop guys, are looking to deal,” Goei said.

He pointed to Service Electric, which needed some investment in its network and didn’t have a consistent marketing strategy when Altice first bought it, and has responded well with minimal effort. 

“We’re seeing a lot of low hanging fruit just by adding two or three additional sales people both on the SMB side and the B2B side that’s been very lucrative for us just increasing penetration out there, bringing new products and we’re upgrading the network as quickly as we can,” Goei said. “Everything that we are able to get our hands on in terms of M&A opportunities will be the best use of our capital.”

Altice USA expects about $1.1 billion in proceeds from its sale of a 49% interest in its Lightpath division to Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners. While that money could be used to help finance system purchases, Goei added that if no M&A opportunities are found, the next best use for that cash could be share repurchases.

After spurning Altice USA’s advances twice, Canadian telecom company Cogeco doubled down on the cable business on Wednesday, with its Cogeco Connexion subsidiary agreeing to buy Quebec operator DERYtelecom for C$405 million. 

DERYtelecom is the third largest cable operator in Quebec, offering internet, television and telephone service to about 100,000 customers across the province. According to Cogeco, DERYtelecom reported revenue of about C$105 million and adjusted EBITDA of C$44 million for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31. 

The news comes shortly after Cogeco rejected a sweetened $8.4 billion buyout offer from American cable company Altice USA and Canadian telecom giant Rogers Communications. Altice has said it would buy Cogeco’s U.S. cable assets -- Atlantic Broadband -- for $3.9 billion, while Rogers would pay about the same for Cogeco’s Canadian operations. Cogeco’s controlling shareholder, Gestion Audem, rejected the latest offer, as it had rebuffed the earlier bid of $7.8 billion for the company.    

Related: Altice USA and Cogeco: He’s Just Not That Into You 

In a press release, Cogeco said the deal made sense because DERYtelecom’s operations are similar to its own, and presents an opportunity to use its sales and product expertise to bolster DERYtelecom’s service offerings. Cogeco estimated the deal would present about $3 million in annual run-rate synergies, and will help it expand its rural reach.   

“The acquisition of DERYtelecom is a strong strategic fit which will allow Cogeco Connexion to increase its presence in areas that are adjacent to its Quebec footprint and to build on the long history of mutual respect, collaboration and friendship between the two companies,” said Cogeco CEO Philippe Jetté in a press release. “Our proven track-record in the successful integration of regional cable businesses, having acquired five companies in the U.S. and Canada over the past five years alone, demonstrates our commitment to bring superior connectivity to regional and rural communities.”

The transaction represents an acquisition multiple of 7.8 times EBITDA, accounting for the projected synergies and tax benefits.

The purchase price will be financed with a combination of cash on hand and Cogeco’s term revolving facility. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals under the Competition Act along with other customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal 2021.

Altice USA showed up at Cogeco’s door over the weekend, bearing a sweetened offer that was soundly rejected for a second time by the Canadian telco’s controlling shareholders. And while Gestion Audem, the family trust that controls 69% of Cogeco’s vote, effectively swatted away Altice’s offer of more candy and bigger flowers, there are those that believe that the latest bid may not have been aimed at them after all. 

Gestion Audem, the trust headed by the telco’s executive chairman Louis Audet, wasted little time in firing off a rejection of the latest Altice USA bid for the company, which at $8.4 billion  represented an 8% increase to its Sept. 2 offer. In a tersely worded statement, Luis Audet basically asked Altice USA what part of “No,” does it not understand?

Audet referenced Gestion Audem’s earlier rejection of Altice USA’s offer in its statement, adding: "Since this is apparently not registering with Rogers and Altice, we repeat today that this is not a negotiating strategy, but a definitive refusal. We are not interested in selling our shares."

That’s a pretty clear “We’re not that into you,” from an entity that pretty much calls the shots for Cogeco and its subsidiary Cogeo Communications. But some analysts believe that the raised offer wasn’t for the family -- although it did include a little sweetener for them -- but for minority shareholders that seem to be more receptive to a deal.

“Under the circumstances, Audet's decisive rejection of Altice's bid could not have come as a surprise,” wrote Bernstein media analyst Peter Supino in a note to clients Monday. “In that light, we assume that Altice has aimed this second offer at Cogeco's minority shareholders. The deal's valuation of Atlantic –11x forward EBITDA – certainly merits their attention.”

Minority shareholders appear to be open to a transaction. Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said at the virtual Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference in September that it has received “supportive feedback” from some Cogeco shareholders. 

Supino, in an e-mail message, added that shareholder interest has been high in the deal.

“Our sense is that there is significant minority investor support for Altice’s proposal,” Supino said. “Whether the Audets will place a value on that, we don’t know.”

But just what could Cogeco’s minority shareholders do? Like their American counterparts, they could take their case to court, but the chances of that being successful are low. 

Robert Yalden, Stephen Sigurdson Professor in Corporate Law and Finance Faculty of Law, at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, said while class action suits are not the norm around takeover bids in Canada, shareholders could sue under the “Oppression Remedy,” which allows any shareholder to take action if they feel the company has wronged them. But there are two very big hurdles in using the Oppression Remedy to try to force a controlling shareholder to sell: Canadian law requires company boards to act in the best interests of the company, not its shareholders; and it’s hard to prove you’re being oppressed just because a larger shareholder doesn’t want to sell. 

Yalden added that Canadian courts, like U.S. courts, usually give public companies the benefit of the doubt, assuming that a company’s board of directors made decisions on an informed basis and with the best interests of the company in mind, the so-called “business judgment rule.” So shareholders would have to make an extremely compelling case that the board has done something wrong.  

“Even if you made that case, I’m not sure where it would get you because what you’re trying to do is force a majority shareholder to sell,” Yalden said. “I think it would be very unlikely that a court would say the majority shareholder, by refusing to sell its shares, is acting improperly. I think it’s an uphill battle. That doesn’t mean they won’t try something, but it’s not obvious to me.”

While court action may be a long shot, it may not even be necessary. Most of the shareholder pressure to do a deal seems to be centered on the Altice portion of the transaction. 

In a research report Monday, Barclays research media analyst Kannan Venkateshwar noted that there is a big disparity in the multiples being offered for Cogeco’s Canadian and U.S. assets. According to the deal parameters, Rogers is offering about 8.5-to-9 times cash flow for Cogeco’s Canadian businesses, about in line with other past telecom deals. Altice USA’s bid for Atlantic Broadband is valued at more than 11 times cash flow, at the upper end of past U.S. media deals.   . 

Venkateshwar wrote that  the disparity between those multiples could eventually force the Audets to sell Atlantic Broadband and keep its Canadian holdings. The $3.9 billion in Altice cash could go a long way toward shoring up its balance sheet and competing more effectively with the larger Rogers. 

Earlier this year Cogeco unveiled plans to enter the wireless business, long a stronghold of Rogers, the most dominant mobile player in Canada. Cogeco executives have speculated that Rogers’ motivation to do a deal could be more about eliminating a competitor than expanding its reach. 

At the virtual BMO Capital Markets Media & Communications conference Sept. 15, Cogeco chief financial officer Patrice Ouimet said the company was not surprised by the Rogers and Altice USA bids, but was taken aback by how they did it.

“...Proceeding with a hostile offer on a family-owned company was something that was surprising to us,” Ouimet said. “Not the interest, but the way it was done, especially since the Audet family had indicated the night before that they would not sell in the transaction.”

He also was puzzled about the timing of the bid and speculated it could be connected to Cogeco’s plans to launch a wireless service. Cogeco submitted a plan to offer a Hybrid Mobile Network Operator (HMNO) wireless service, using its own spectrum and leasing network space from other carriers, to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in February. That proposal is still awaiting approval from the regulatory agency. 

“Taking Cogeco out of the equation for Rogers is probably part of the equation to launch a hostile bid right now,” Ouimet said at the conference. 

In his report Venkateshwar wrote that buying Cogeco could “potentially smooth out the competitive environment for Rogers, particularly given its wireless market share in Ontario and Quebec (~47% and ~28% subscriber share, respectively).”

But it also could force Rogers to make a decision regarding its existing Cogeco investment. If the Audet family continues to fend off its advances, Rogers may just decide to sell its stake and focus on other things.

“Given the tightly held family ownership structures of Rogers and Cogeco, any transaction is ultimately subject to idiosyncratic choices made by a small set of individuals rather than the underlying economic or strategic rationale of the proposed deal,” he wrote.

Altice seems to get it, adding in the press release for its revised offer that it would withdraw the bid if it doesn't have a "mutually satisfactory" agreement or "at least a clear path forward to completion of a transaction," by Nov. 18. That gives both sides plenty of time to decide just how much they're into each other. 

Altice USA, more than one month after its unsolicited bid for Cogeco Communications was soundly rejected by the Canadian telco’s controlling shareholder, has increased its bid by 8%, including upping its offer for Cogeco’s US operations, Atlantic Broadband.

In a statement, the Audet family, which controls about 69% of Cogeco's vote, again rejected the deal. 

Altice USA said on Sunday that along with Canadian telecom giant Rogers Communications, it was raising its offer for 100% of Cogeco to C$11.1 billion ($8.4 billion) in cash. Altice USA said if the offer was accepted, it would pay about C$5.1 billion ($3.9 billion) for the Atlantic Broadband assets and sell Cogeco’s Canadian businesses to Rogers for the remainder. 

Altice and Rogers offered a combined $7.8 billion for Cogeco on Sept. 2. Of that amount, Altice said it would pay about $3.6 billion for Atlantic Broadband.

Cogeco’s ruling Audet family rejected Altice and Rogers’ earlier bid in September, adding that the family had no intention to sell its stake. 

At the time Louis Audet, Cogeco executive chairman and leader of the Audet Family Trust, Gestion Audem, said in a statement that the family’s rejection of the bid “not a negotiating tactic.”

In a statement issued late Sunday, the family held fast to that stance.

"As we did on September 2nd, 2020, following the announcement of their first unsolicited proposal, members of the Audet family unanimously reject this further proposal. Since this is apparently not registering with Rogers and Altice, we repeat today that this is not a negotiating strategy, but a definitive refusal. We are not interested in selling our shares," said Louis Audet in the statement.

He added that the Audet family's stewardship of the company over 63 years has allowed Cogeco to grow into the only broadband provider with significant operations in the U.S. and Canada, and its stock price and operating results have outperformed  both Altice USA and Rogers.

"Rogers has freely chosen to accumulate shares in the Corporations with full knowledge of the implications," Louis Audet continued. "The Audet family regrets that Rogers' capital allocation decision is causing the Rogers family and Board such anguish."

A good chunk of the bid increase is targeted at the Audet family, led by Cogeco chairman Louis Audet. Altice said that about C$900 million ($682 million) of the purchase price would go to the family for their shares, up from the C$800 million ($612 million) they would have received in the earlier offer.

“We are pleased to present an incredibly attractive revised and enhanced offer for Cogeco that significantly rewards all shareholders and incorporates feedback from recent discussions with holders of subordinate voting shares,” Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said in a press release. “We encourage the Cogeco boards to act in the best interest of all shareholders and stakeholders as they thoughtfully consider this offer, and we respectfully request that the boards engage with us to discuss our proposal.”

Most analysts expected Altice to increase its bid. 

Altice said in a press release that it was giving Cogeco until Nov. 18 to accept the offer, after such time it would withdraw the bid.

Altice USA’s and Rogers Communications’ unsolicited offer for Cogeco reached a new level Wednesday after Cogeco's lead independent director fired off a letter to the companies, claiming they are confusing investors by continuing to pursue the bid.

Altice USA and Rogers launched a $7.8 billion offer for Cogeco on Sept. 2. As part of that offer, Altice USA would purchase Cogeco’s U.S. assets -- Atlantic Broadband -- for about $3.6 billion, while Rogers would acquire the company’s Canadian businesses for $4.2 billion. Cogeco’s controlling shareholder -- the Audet family -- promptly rejected the deal, stating that its refusal to sell was not a negotiating tactic.

While Altice USA and Rogers have said they are hopeful a deal could be reached, Cogeco has been adamant in its rejection of the deal.

Altice USA and Rogers fired off a letter to Cogeco’s executive chairman and lead representative of the Audet family Louis Audet on Sept. 15, pointing out that its offer was rejected without the directors or independent directors “undertaking any appropriate process.”

Related: Cogeco CFO Says Wireless Competition May Be Driving Hostile Bid 

Altice USA and Rogers continued that no independent committee was created to look at the offer, nor was the offer referred to Cogeco’s Strategic Opportunities Committee.

“These failures of the boards resulted in there being no comprehensive review and analysis of our offer or deep engagement with the controlling shareholder,” Goei and Natale wrote. “In simple terms, the boards and their independent directors failed to fulfill their most basic duties in representing the shareholders they are duty bound to represent and protect.”

Related: Altice USA Tries to Keep Cogeco Bid Alive 

Goei and Natale asked to meet with Cogeco lead independent director James Cherry later this week to “to better understand the rationale of the boards and independent directors behaving in this manner.” They asked to hear from the board by 5 p.m. Sept. 16 as to whether such a meeting was possible. 

Cherry met that deadline, stating in a letter Wednesday that the allegations made by Altice USA and Rogers were untrue and unsubstantiated.

“From the outset, you have engaged in bad faith tactics, some of which created confusion in the market,” Cherry wrote, adding that shortly after making its initial offer to Cogeco on Sept. 1 and offering to respond to questions, Altice and Rogers made their bid public. That action, Cherry continued, didn’t give Cogeco any time to respond and neglected to mention that the Audets had rejected the proposal the night before. 

“We can only surmise that this was done with a view to misleading investors and increasing the stock price in an attempt to put pressure on the family to sell,” Cherry wrote, adding that its process was proper. “We will not engage in a futile exercise aimed at diverting the attention of management and key resources from our business operations while creating friction among our stakeholders.”

Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said he has received “very supportive” feedback from Cogeco shareholders since his company paired with Rogers Communications to launch an unsolicited bid for the Canadian telecom company. And though he said he is still pursuing a deal despite a rejection from Cogeco’s controlling shareholder, he stopped short of saying he would increase his offer.

Altice and Rogers launched their $7.8 billion bid for Cogeco on Sept. 2 and almost immediately were rebuffed by Cogeco’s ruling Audet family, which said it had no intention to sell. While some have speculated that Altice will likely raise its offer to keep the deal alive, the Audet’s have insisted their rejection was not a negotiating tactic. 

At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference on Tuesday, Goei wouldn’t say whether Altice USA plans to increase its bid. But he said he has received a lot of positive feedback from shareholders outside of the Audet family. 

“We remain committed to the process and we  look forward to hearing back at some point from the board,”  Goei said at the conference. “We’ve gotten, as you may suspect, very supportive feedback from shareholders of the target who would like to see us engaged in a process. I think there's just a question of time in terms of if we are able to engage here and what form it would take.”

Altice USA still sees M&A as the most effective path to growth, adding that the company has had success in squeezing more revenue and profit out of small assets.

“We’ve never shied away [from the idea] that M&A is the best return for our shareholders,” Goei said, adding that while Atlantic Broadband is well run, he believes Altice USA can make it even more profitable. 

“We think we can do a better job going forward, not only on the cost side of the business,” Goei continued. “Each of the businesses we’ve acquired -- at Cablevision and at Suddenlink -- we’ve been able to accelerate top line growth, whether it’s in the existing footprint in cable, but also the ancillary businesses whether it be B2B, advertising or mobile.  We feel good about our opportunities about taking smaller businesses in cable and driving great integration and top line growth.”

Cogeco chief financial officer Patrice Ouimet said the motivation for Rogers Communications’ hostile bid for his company may be primarily driven by the larger telecom firm’s desire to keep Cogeco out of the wireless business.

Rogers, along with Altice USA, launched an unsolicited $7.8 billion bid for Cogeco on Sept. 2. The deal was split into two parts -- Rogers would pay $4.2 billion for Cogeco’s Canadian telecom assets while Altice USA would put up $3.6 billion for Cogeco’s U.S. cable business, Atlantic Broadband. Cogeco’s controlling shareholder -- the Audet family -- rejected the deal, saying in a statement last week that its rejection was not a negotiating tactic, but was indeed final. 

At the BMO Capital Markets Media & Communications conference Tuesday, Ouimet said the company was not surprised by the Rogers and Altice USA bids, but was taken aback by how they did it.

“The interest in our company is not that surprising,” Ouimet said. “We have attractive assets in both countries and we have had strong performance as well -- we’ve performed very well in the past two or three years. Proceeding with a hostile offer on a family-owned company was something that was surprising to us. Not the interest, but the way it was done, especially since the Audet family had indicated the night before that they would not sell in the transaction.”

Ouimet also was puzzled concerning the timing of the bid, speculating that it may be tied to Cogeco’s plans to launch a wireless service. Cogeco submitted a plan to offer a Hybird Mobile Network Operator (HMNO) wireless service, using its own spectrum and leasing network space from other carriers , to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in February. That proposal is still awaiting approval from the regulatory agency. 

“Taking Cogeco out of the equation for Rogers is probably part of the equation to launch a hostile bid right now,” Ouimet said. 

Later at the same conference on Tuesday, Rogers CEO Joe Natale said the impetus behind the bid is whether Cogeco, which mainly operates in Quebec, will be a part of Rogers’ plans for the rest of the country. Rogers is the largest telecom operator in Canada. 

“As we sit here with our board and make our capital plans for the medium and the long term,  we’re asking a very fundamental question -- Do our plans include Cogeco territory or not?” Natale said. “It’s a question that we’ve asked over the years.”

Natale added that Rogers has been the largest individual shareholder in Cogeco for years, and though it has a 33% economic stake, the Audet family controls nearly 70% of the vote. 

“The question as we enshrine our capital plans and look at driving innovations, is that with Cogeco inside as part of a partnership here or is it not?” Natale said. “I’d hate to miss this technology innovation cycle and not have answered the question.” 

Despite a rather pointed rebuff from Cogeco’s largest shareholder, Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei isn’t throwing in the towel just yet, saying at an industry conference that his company remains committed to its effort to purchase the Canadian telecom operator.

Altice USA launched a $7.8 billion bid to purchase Cogeco on Sept. 2. As part of that offer -- made in partnership with Rogers Communications -- Altice would purchase Cogeco’s Atlantic Broadband U.S. cable business, while Rogers would buy its Canadian operations for $4.2 billion. The offer -- C$106.53 per share -- represented a 36% premium to Cogeco’s stock price on Aug. 31.

Cogeco responded quickly, publicly stating on Sept. 2 that its board would evaluate the offer, but adding that its controlling shareholder -- the Audet family -- had not expressed any intention to sell. On Sept. 7, Cogeco executive chairman Louis Audet, also the top representative for the Audet family trust that holds its Cogeco interest, made it clear that the family did not intend to sell.

“I want to provide absolute clarity to stakeholders regarding our intentions in response to the recent unsolicited proposal to acquire Cogeco. Our stocks are not for sale,” Audet said in the statement. “And let me be clear, our refusal is not a negotiating position, it is final.”

At the virtual Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2020 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference Wednesday, Goei didn’t seem ready to give up yet.

“We’re working,” Goei said. “This is a marathon not a sprint. We’re committed to trying to come to an end game. From our standpoint, that’s very simple, which is we’d like to be able to acquire the U.S. assets.”

He added that Rogers already owns a 33% interest in Cogeco Communications and 41% of Cogeco, which it has held for a “very, very long time.” 

“They’d like to be able to sort out their situation, one way or the other,” Goei continued. “We are going to be committed to continuing this process and this project. We’ll see where it ends up.”

Goei wouldn’t say how that would happen or if Altice USA would raise its offer, but he did say that the deal would be a good fit, likening Atlantic Broadband to a smaller Suddenlink, the Midwestern operator the company purchased in 2015. 

“That entire Florida to Maine footprint that they have is geographically pretty contiguous,” Goei said. “We like cable, we like traditional MVPDs, and size matters in our space -- for the technology investments, for the infrastructure investments, for  the content costs, for all of the amortization of the operational costs of the business. It’s pretty straight forward in terms of the synergies. They’re in every single line item across the board.”

While Goei said the business will continue to do well without the deal -- Altice USA had its two best quarters of growth in Q1 and Q2 -- opportunities like Atlantic Broadband don’t come around often.

“The opportunity came to us as we got introduced to Rogers,” Goei said. “Rogers has a big focus on Canada and no interest in the U.S. and vice versa. It’s just a question of timing. ...It’s not a question in any shape or form of us needing to do anything in particular. It’s just that you need to be reactive in M&A situations and this was a perfect opportunity for us to be reactive.”

While the hope is that an agreement can be reached, Goei said if a deal does not materialize, life will go on. 

“Plan A all the time to the extent there is attractive M&A is available, we’ll always prioritize that,” Goei said. “We will always be looking at stuff out there, and to the extent that we find a target that we find very attractive for whatever part of our business we are looking to grow, then we will use those proceeds for that. Assuming that doesn’t happen, because M&A is fraught with low probabilities of success depending on what the asset is and who the seller is and what the process is, we will look to buy back more shares and even maybe delever our balance sheet. It depends on the opportunity.”

Canadian telecom company Cogeco’s controlling shareholder categorically rejected the unsolicited takeover offer launched by Altice USA last week, stressing that there is no room for negotiation.

Altice USA offered about $7.8 billion for Cogeco on Sept. 2, a tandem deal where it would buy the telecom company’s U.S. assets -- Atlantic Broadband -- for $3.6 billion, while Canadian communications giant Rogers Communications would purchase Cogeco’s Canadian assets for $4.2 billion. The deal, valued at about C$106.53 per share, represented a 36% premium to Cogeco’s trading price on Aug. 31.

Since the offer, Cogeco’s stock price has soared -- it closed at C$132.16 per share on Sept. 2. The stock fell to C$106.75 per share on Sept. 8 as it has become clear that the Audet family does not want to sell.

Altice USA shares, up about 3.5% on Sept. 2 to $28.65 per share, fell to $26.25 on Sept. 8.

In a statement issued Sept. 7, Louis Audet, the appointed representative of the Audet family, executive chairman of Cogeco and president of Gestion Audem, which holds the family’s stake in Cogeco, left no room for interpretation. 

“I want to provide absolute clarity to stakeholders regarding our intentions in response to the recent unsolicited proposal to acquire Cogeco. Our stocks are not for sale,” Audet said in the statement. “And let me be clear, our refusal is not a negotiating position, it is final.

“Our father started this business 63 years ago in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, sowing the seeds of a business that today has a story of incredible growth,” he continued. “The company went public in 1985 and annual revenues by that time had increased to $20 million. Today they are $ 2.5 billion. The company is well managed, growing, strategically positioned for the evolving and dynamic future of the telecommunications and media industries.

“My family, together with our boards of directors and our management team, are very proud and satisfied with our long term vision for the continued growth of Cogeco and the ownership structure that makes this long term vision possible.”

Cogeco had said the Audet family did not want to sell shortly after it received Altice USA’s offer. Altice had subsequently said it was open to starting a dialog and Rogers pledged to keep Cogeco’s headquarters in Montreal. That apparently wasn’t enough to sway the family.

Whether Altice USA will take its case to shareholders remains to be seen. The Audet family holds 69% of Cogeco Inc.’s  voting rights, which in turn controls 82.9% of the vote of subsidiary Cogeco Communications, so any deal would have to include them. Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei is scheduled to speak at the virtual Bank of America 2020 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference today (Sept. 9) at 3:20 p.m. 

Tubi announced Monday that its AVOD platform has been natively integrated into Rogers Communications’ Ignite video service, the Canadian cable operator's licensed version of Comcast’s X1 video system. .

Visit Next TV to read more stories like this one. 

Comcast natively integrated Tubi into its own X1 system back in November 2018, allowing subscribers to search and access the free-to-consumer streaming service’s movies and shows through their X1 Voice Remotes as they would any other X1 program.

Since that time, other cable companies that license X1 technology have integrated Tubi into their UI, notably Cox Communications, which makes the AVOD platform a native part of its Contour video service.

Related: Tubi Bought by Fox for $440M

Other popular streaming services integrated into Ignite include Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube.

Tubi was purchased by Fox Corp. for $440 million in March. 

Tubi announced today that its AVOD platform has been natively integrated into Rogers Communications’ Ignite video service, the Canadian cable operator's licensed version of Comcast’s X1 video system. 

Comcast natively integrated Tubi into its own X1 system back in November 2018, allowing subscribers to search and access the free-to-consumer streaming service’s movies and shows through their X1 Voice Remotes as they would any other X1 program. 

Since that time, other cable companies that license X1 technology have integrated Tubi into their UI, notably Cox Communications, which makes the AVOD platform a native part of its Contour video service. 

Also read: Tubi Bought by Fox for $440M

Other popular streaming services integrated into Ignite include Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube. 

Tubi was purchased by Fox Corp. for $440 million in March. 

Cox Communications has integrated YouTube Kids and NPR One into Contour TV, the white label version of Comcast’s X1 video platform.

Comcast had already integrated these apps into its flagship X1 product. Contour already offers Netflix, YouTube and iHeart Radio apps, allowing subscribers to access these services without toggling HDMI inputs.

“Now, with YouTube Kids and NPR One, Contour brings even more age-appropriate content to the TV screen for younger members of the family, and the informative, quality audio programming of NPR One for those who want to stay abreast of current events —particularly as election day gets close,” read a Cox advertisement that ran Thursday in a number of the operator’s markets.

Related: Cox: 1M Subs Now on X1-Powered ‘Contour’ TV Product

The programming is available in the “apps” section of the Contour guide.

Privately held Cox doesn’t often release figures on the number of Contour users, although it did say a year ago that it had 1 million subscribers on the platform. Estimates peg the Atlanta-based operator’s total video base to be around 4.065 million.

Canada’s Shaw Communications, Rogers Communications and Videotron also license X1 from Comcast. 

Canada’s Rogers Communications is partnering with the University of British Columbia to turn the educational org’s Vancouver campus into a 5G hub, which will act was a testbed for 5G services.

“5G represents a massive technological transformation that will connect everything in our world from people and machines, to homes and cities. The global race to unlock its potential is underway,” said Joe Natale, president and CEO of Rogers Communications. “Our partnership with UBC will ensure we bring our country and Canadians the very best 5G has to offer.”

Rogers said it will begin deployment of 5G-ready network equipment and infrastructure on the UBC campus starting in early 2019. The partnership will study 5G applications such as monitoring vehicle traffic, autonomous vehicles, machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as network slicing technology for use in robotics, farming and medical applications.

Related: Rogers Tightens Technology Ties to Comcast

The announcement follows a series of 5G announcements from Rogers, including a deal with vendor Ericsson in April to supply equipment and software.

“With respect to network evolution, we continue to make steady progress on our 5G deployment plan. We assigned key strategic agreements with more to come and plans are underway to deploy thousands of small cells,” Natale told investors in July. “We are working with Ericsson, the 5G North American partner of choice, to densify our network with small and macro cells.”

Canada’s Rogers Communications is planning to start employee trials of a new IPTV platform powered by Comcast’s X1 platform next month, with a “soft” commercial launch expected by the first quarter of 2018, execs confirmed last Thursday (October 19) during the company’s Q3 call.

Joe Natale, Rogers’s CEO, noted that “key elements” of the platform, including linear channels, VOD and cloud DVR functionality, are currently running in a production environment at Rogers, which announced its X1 syndication deal with Comcast in December 2016.

RELATED: Rogers to Tap Comcast’s X1 Platform for IPTV Shift

“We are getting ready now…to do a full-scale employee trial,” he said, noting that it’s slated to start in November and involve more than 1,000 Rogers employees.

Rogers, he added, is shooting for a Q1 “soft commercial launch” that will open it up to a larger set of employees and a portion of the MSO’s customer base. The company expects to follow with a full commercial launch later in 2018.

“At some point in 2019, we'll stop sell our legacy platform [and] continue a focused, thoughtful migration of our entire base overtime to X1,” Natale said.

Natale is optimistic that Rogers can scale quickly on X1, noting that Cox Communications, which is already licensing Comcast’s platform for its new “Contour” service, now has more than 1 million customers on it and is seeing an improvement in churn as a result.

RELATED: Cox: 1M Subs Now on X1-Powered ‘Contour’ TV Product

Rogers will be looking for its new X1-powered multiscreen IPTV service to help it drive improved pay TV numbers. In Q3, Rogers lose 18,000 video subs, ending the period with 1.75 million.

Natale also talked up X1’s ability to integrate traditional pay TV services with OTT offerings and become a key aggregation point for both and win the “battle for HDMI 1” as the TV’s source of content. In the U.S., Comcast has already completed integrations of Netflix and YouTube, with Sling TV and others in the works.

RELATED: OTT Becomes A-OK on the STB (subscription required)

“We view it as a merchandising platform to lay out the best of content from Netflix from other studios, YouTube, etc.,” he explained. “And as we strike the right arrangements, we will be adding more streaming services to the platform. I really want to be Switzerland, when it comes to inviting and integrating streaming platforms into our X1 capability, I think that's the future of video.”

On the broadband front, Natale called Full Duplex DOCSIS as “real and capable” for delivering multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds on HFC, but stressed that the specs were released earlier this month.

RELATED: Full Duplex DOCSIS Plows Ahead

“It will be, I think, 2019-plus before we see it really commercially available in the full sense,” he said.

In Q3, Rogers added 27,000 cable internet subs, extending its total to 2.21 million.

Rogers ended Q3 with 4.28 million cable homes passed, up by 10,000 for the period.

Rogers Communications execs shed more light on the anticipated rollout timing of a new IPTV service that will be powered by Comcast’s X1 platform.

“We're targeting a soft launch early next year,” Rogers president and CEO Joe Natale said Thursday on the company’s Q2 earnings call, noting that the plan is to start with lab and employee trials, followed by a “full launch.”

RELATED: Rogers to Tap Comcast’s X1 Platform for IPTV Shift

“It's important we do this well. It's important that we have not just a high quality product, but a very customer-friendly set of processes and how we market sale support fulfil and deliver on the experience. For us is the game changer.”

One thing Rogers hopes the new platform will change is the trajectory of its video sub base.

Rogers lost 25,000 video subs in Q2, ending the period with 1.77 million. Comcast, which will post Q2 numbers on July 27, has been riding X1 to pay TV subscriber gains in recent quarters. 

Cox Communications and Shaw Communications have also launched video products that rely on X1 syndication deals. Shaw saw its video base increase by 12,921 subs during its fiscal Q3 period. 

RELATED: Shaw Expands BlueSky TV Across Western Canada

Rogers CFO Tony Staffieri said the aim is to get CPE costs associated with the rollout, including labor costs, to below $400 per home, noting that IP-capable boxes lend themselves well to a self-installation model.

For Q2, Rogers posted flat cable revenues of C$870 million, and a 3% rise in adjusted operating profit.

Rogers added 11,000 high-speed internet subs, for a total of 2.18 million, with 46% of residential subscribers taking a speed tier of 100 Mbps or greater. It ended the quarter with 4.26 million homes passed.

Overall revenues rose 4% in Q2, driven largely by wireless service revenue growth of 8%.

XITE, a Dutch music company, said it has launched a 4K music video offering in Canada following a new distribution deal with Rogers Communications.

Rogers is offering the new 4K service from XITE on channel 987. Access is limited to Rogers 4K subs who have a NextBox that supports the video format.

RELATED: Rogers Launches Big 4K Initiative

“The launch in Canada is a great first step for XITE in North America. I am very happy with this partnership and with all of our new Canadian viewers,” Cees Honig, CEO of XITE Networks U.S.A., said in a statement.

XITE, which launched its music television channel in 2008, said it is now distributed in 15 million-plus homes in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Qatar and, most recently, in Canada.

Comcast’s influence on the technology direction of other major cable operators continues to grow.

Cox Communications and Shaw Communications have already begun to deploy next-generation video services that lean on Comcast’s X1 platform as they look to shore up their pay TV base.

Canada’s Rogers Communications plans to follow suit in early 2018 with a new X1-powered IPTV service, but its technology ties to Comcast appear to be going even deeper.

Rogers announced last week that it also plans to use a range of consumer premises equipment (CPE) designed by Comcast, including DOCSIS 3.1-based advanced gateways, WiFi extenders, and a new class of wireless set-tops for X1 that Comcast is starting to introduce in its own systems. Rogers will also adopt a Digital Home solution introduced by Comcast earlier this month that enables the operator to centralize and add smarts to customer home networks via millions of in-home broadband gateways.

By going with X1, Rogers, which lost 76,000 video subscribers last year, hopes to hop on the subscriber wave Comcast is riding in the U.S. Comcast added 80,000 video subs in Q4, and 161,000 video subs for all of 2016.

Cox last week said that 2016 was its best year in video since 2008. The privately held MSO didn’t announce figures, but attributed the results largely to the deployment of its new X1-based Contour video offering.

“We think there is a real opportunity for growth,” Tony Staffieri, Rogers’s chief financial officer, said last Thursday (Jan. 26) on the company’s earnings call.

The traction Comcast is getting with its X1 licensing program and the other tech relationships it’s forging, strengthens the MSO’s position as a software and technology company and supplier to some of its pay TV peers. Its syndication strategy will also help to recoup some of the costs tied to its homegrown products, while also driving more scale into its product ecosystem.

While that is good news for Arris, Technicolor and other suppliers that are strongly connected to that ecosystem, it will also apply pressure on other vendors — like TiVo and Evolution Digital — that have developed products aimed at helping MVPDs, including tier 2 and tier 3 operators, migrate to IP-based video platforms.

In addition to driving X1 penetration in its own footprint, Comcast also plans to add more X1 licensing partners in 2017, Brian Roberts, Comcast’s chairman and CEO, said on the company’s Q4 call last.

Rogers Communications intends to roll out an IPTV service that relies on Comcast’s X1 platform in early 2018, but the technology ties between those operators is going much deeper than that.

RELATED: Rogers to Tap Comcast’s X1 Platform for IPTV Shift

As part of its Q4 results, the Canadian service operator will also use a range of CPE designed by Comcast, including DOCSIS 3.1 gateways, WiFi extenders, a new class of wireless set-tops and technology that enables the operator to send video to third-party companion devices, such as tablets and smartphones.

The plan also calls for Rogers to adopt Comcast’s new Digital Home solution, which Comcast announced earlier this month around CES and expects to deploy by the end of Q1 2017.  That cloud-powered platform will allow the operator to centralize and organize their networks via millions of in-home broadband gateways. Rogers, along with Cox and Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks (now part of Charter Communications) already sells a home security service powered by Icontrol (Comcast and Alarm.com are in the process of acquiring different pieces of Icontrol).

CES 2017: Comcast Aims to Smarten Up, Simplify the Home Network

Rogers also said it plans to debut a new advanced DOCSIS 3.1 WiFi gateway by mid-2017. Rogers has begun to offer a D3.1 gateway from Hitron. Comcast, meanwhile, has tapped Arris and Technicolor to product a new D3.1 gateway called the XB6.

RELATED: Comcast Taps Arris, Technicolor for ‘XB6’ Gateways: Sources

Rogers expects to launch its version of Digital Home along with the new IPTV product in early 2018, Tony Staffieri, Rogers’s CFO, said Thursday on the company’s earnings call.

As for its coming deployment of X1, Rogers hopes to generate the kind of results Comcast is getting with it in the U.S. and ride the scale and R&D afforded by the platform.

“We have seen the success X1 has had for Comcast in the U.S. market, including improving TV subscriber additions, lowering churn, increasing ARPU for excellent users, but most importantly, delivering a better customer experience,” Staffieri said. “Our customers will benefit from Comcast’s scale and substantial R&D investments.”

He also said Rogers expects its cable video economics to benefit from the variable opex model offered via its Comcast agreement, “which will limit cable video capex to more success-based investment.”

Staffieri also characterized the execution  risk of X1 as “moderate to low.”

“This is a proven product,” he said, noting that the ecosystem for the platform is relatively small.  “Others have done it in terms of licensing the product.”

Shaw Communications and Cox Communications have already rolled out next-gen video products that rely on X1.

“We think there is a real opportunity for growth,” Staffieri said when Rogers combines its new X1-powered video product with its own Internet products.

During the quarter,  Rogers lost 13,000 video subs, narrowed from a year-ago loss of 24,000, for a total of 1.82 million. Rogers lost 76,000 video subs in all of 2016.

The MSO added 30,000 high-speed Internet subs, expanding to a total of 2.14 million.

Rogers also disclosed that its Q4 net income was impacted by a $484 million charge tied to its discontinued investment in the operator’s own IPTV product, which is dumped in favor of the new X1-hosted approach with Comcast.

Rogers also noted that it intends to hire Joseph Natale as president and CEO effective July 2017.  Alan Horn is currently serving as Rogers’s interim president and CEO.

Rogers announced last October that Guy Laurence had stepped down and that Telus Communications chief Joseph Natale would be stepping into that role eventually.

Rogers Communications has inked a long term strategic deal with Comcast that will pave the way for the Canadian cable operator to deploy Comcast’s X1 video platform and install a next-gen IPTV service.

The agreement, which will enable Rogers to migrate toward an IP, multiscreen video future using a hosted platform based on Comcast’s technology, follows X1 syndication/licensing deals that Comcast has forged with Cox Communications and Shaw Communications. Those agreements are enabling Comcast to broaden the adoption of its home-grown platform outside its traditional footprint and recoup some of those costs after its bid to acquire Time Warner Cable came up short. 

RELATED: X1 Licensing Not a ‘Big Financial Mover’ for Comcast

With the X1 deal in hand, Rogers said it will cut further investment in an IPTV product it was developing, and expects to take a pre-tax, non-cash asset impairment charge in the range of C$475 million to C$525 million in its fourth quarter ending Dec. 31, 2016.

But it’ll be some time before Rogers puts it all in place, announcing that it expects to launch its X1-based IPTV service in “early 2018.” In the meantime, the MSO said it will continue to enhance its legacy video platform with more 4K content and a DVR that can record and playback 4K content.

Rogers, which has been rumored to be in the mix for a potential X1 syndication agreement since 2015, noted that its new IPTV service will ride on an enhanced Internet platform that enables gigabit broadband. Rogers began to roll out a DOCSIS 3.1-powered gateway from Hitron this week.

RELATED: After Cox and Shaw, Canada’s Rogers might be next to tap Comcast’s platform (subscription required) 

Rogers didn't announce which features of X1 it will use early on. Comcast has been bulkling up X1 with features that include a cloud DVR, a native sports app, a voice remote, and integration with its Xfinity Home security/automation service. Comcast has also started to team X1 with more OTT services, including Netflix and Pandora, Comcast's ad-based short-form video service Watchable, and will soon tie in Sling TV, the Dish Network-owned OTT-TV service

RELATED: Comcast Adding Netflix to X1 Next Week 

“This partnership is great news for our customers,” Alan Horn, chairman and interim CEO of Rogers, said in a statement. “We’re bringing our customers a world-class IPTV service with the most advanced features available in the market today. On top of that, our customers will be future-proofed thanks to Comcast’s innovative and robust product roadmap.”

RELATED: Rogers CEO Laurence Steps Down

“We’ve seen growing desire of other operators to leverage the industry-leading innovations we’ve created at Comcast,” added Neil Smit, Comcast’s Cable’s president and CEO. “Comcast is excited to bring the experiences of the award-winning X1 platform to Rogers’ customers in Canada.” 

Canadian operator Rogers Communications has begun to deploy a DOCSIS 3.1 gateway from Hitron that’s initially being used to support broadband subs on some of the MSO’s highest-level speed tiers, including its 1-Gig offering.

Rogers hasn’t formally announced the rollout, but a Rogers network architect has posted some details about it on the operator’s community forum, and Rogers broadband subs have begun to post images and other details about the new device on the DSL Reports message boards.

Per the Rogers forum posting, the device in question is the Hitron CODA-4582, a DOCSIS 3.1 gateway that uses the Intel Corp. Puma 7 chipset. Hitron’s D3.1 device recently obtained certification from CableLabs.

RELATED: Hitron ‘Coda-45’ Modem Nets DOCSIS 3.1 Certification

“From a technical perspective, there is still a lot of testing going on and some enhancements are already planned to be deployed between not and the end of January,” the post read, noting that the device isn’t yet IPv6-enabled but should be in the January release.

The post also notes that the Hitron device will available in stores starting Dec. 13, and will be the “new default” product for Rogers  Gigabit customers. Current subs on Rogers’s 1-Gig and “250u” (250 Mbps downstream/20 Mbps up with unlimited data) “Ignite” tiers “should be able to swap their existing gateway without issues,” the posting adds.

Rogers has been asked for additional detail about the rollout as well as pricing on the Hitron gateway. 

UPDATE: A Rogers official confirmed that the operator has begun to deploy DOCSIS 3.1 on its network while also making the new HItron gateway availalbe. "This week, starting with our Gigabit Internet customers, we're inviting them to swap their existing modem (free of charge) for the new modem that will offer more capacity for faster speeds, more robust performance and more capacity to support our customers’ growing needs," the official added in an email to Multichannel News. Regarding availability through Rogers stores, the MSO is not selling the Hitron device at retail but letting gigabit customers swap out their existing modems at those outlets. 

South of Roger’s border, Netgear is gearing up for the retail release of its first DOCSIS 3.1-certified device, the CM1000. Comcast and Cox Communications have already approved it for use on their networks. Arris is also getting ready to offer a D3.1 modem, the  SurfBoard 8200, at retail.

RELATED: Netgear Hatching More DOCSIS 3.1 Retail Efforts

The decision by Canadian cable operators Shaw Communications and Rogers Communications to shutter Shomi, their jointly owned subscription video-on-demand service, is the latest example of pay TV’s difficulties in going head-to-head with SVOD juggernaut Netflix.

Shaw and Rogers launched Shomi about two years ago, originally as an add-on to their respective pay TV services. Last week Shomi senior vice president and general manager David Asch confirmed that the service would cease operations on Nov. 30.

“The business climate and online video marketplace have changed markedly in the last few years,” Asch said in a statement. “Combined with the fact that the business is more challenging to operate than we expected, we’ve decided to wind down our operations. We’re proud of the great service we created and the role we played in the evolution of Canada’s video landscape.”

Other factors influenced the decision, including fierce competition with Netflix; what some critics saw as high prices, compared to the competition; and limited program offerings. Rising programming costs also likely played a role, according to Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media and communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak.

CONTENT COSTS HUR

 “Competing against Netflix and Amazon Prime is quite difficult and the amount they spend on programming, already massive, is only going up,” Wlodarczak said.

Those rising costs are evident in the C$100 million to C$140 million write-down Rogers said it expects to take for the service in the third quarter ended Sept. 30. Shaw took a C$51 million write down for its part of the joint venture in July.

Regulations also played a part, according to Canadian research company Convergence Research. Last August the country’s chief regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), revised its videoon- demand regulations to include a new category — hybrid VOD — that would remove content restrictions on the service while making it available to all Internet-service providers.

On the surface, opting for the hybrid VOD designation seemed like a good tradeoff. Under that designation, Shomi wasn’t required to reserve a set amount of shelf space for Canadian-produced programming. But the regulation also required that consumers could buy the service without being customers of Shaw or Rogers, as the service had originally required.

“They defeated the purpose of the initial plan, which was a way to retain customers,” said Convergence Research president Brahm Eiley.

Eiley added that outside market forces — mainly Shaw’s sale of its Shaw Media content business to subsidiary Corus Entertainment in January for C$2.65 billion, and its recent purchase of wireless carrier Wind Mobile — also influenced the decision to shut down Shomi.

OTHER PRIORITIES

“They had other fish to fry,” Eiley said. “The upside of selling wireless to Shaw’s base of over 3 million subscribers, many of whom are already bundled, is a much larger and more important market opportunity.”

The shutdown also presents other opportunities for Shaw to sell its content.

“This touches on program rights and what’s the best way to leverage them,” Eiley added. “Corus and Shaw were sitting on many more of those rights. Now they are in a position to sell them to someone else, not just themselves.”

Shomi has about 900,000 subscribers, but according to reports in the Canadian press, many of those were Shaw or Rogers customers who received the service as part of their TV or Internet package at no additional charge. Others had to pay C$8.99 per month for the service, which some critics said wasn’t competitive to Netflix’s monthly charge of C$9.99.

Adding to the pressure has been Netflix’s shift from a content aggregator, stockpiling episodes of old TV shows, to a producer of original, exclusive content. Eiley said as Netflix has beefed up its programming lineup with popular original like House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, its past perception as a replacement for traditional TV is changing.

“In a way, that’s not where the battle is anymore,” Eiley said, adding that customers are becoming more attracted to services that have content they can’t get anywhere else.

That is especially true in Canada, where Netflix has about 5.2 million subscribers and is growing at a faster pace than in the U.S., according to Eiley. Netflix has to rely more heavily on the strength of its own originals north of the border, because it has fewer programming rights in Canada.

Canadians have access to about half of Netflix’s U.S. library content, Eiley said, mainly because rights in that country are tied to different providers. However, that is up from about 20% to 25% just a few years ago.

Shomi does offer network TV content such as Modern Family, The Blacklist and New Girl, as well as exclusive Canadian rights to Amazon Studios’s Transparent, Fox’s Empire and Starz’s Blunt Talk, but it didn’t have enough original content to compete with Netflix. That, Eiley said, is becoming increasingly important in today’s climate.

“The market has changed,” Eiley said. “It’s not as though those replacements for [traditional] TV are seeing big numbers either.”

Canada’s OTT scene is much different from the U.S. Not only does Netflix have a thinner offering, but Amazon Prime doesn’t offer a streaming-video service in Canada and Hulu doesn’t operate in the country. For over-the-top offerings, Netflix, Shomi and Bell Canada Enterprises’s CraveTV are pretty much the biggest games in town.

BOOST FOR CRAVETV

The departure of Shomi should give a boost to CraveTV, which has the added cachet of providing library programming from HBO and Showtime.

CraveTV has about 1 million customers and similar to Shomi started out as an add-on for its pay TV parent — Bell Canada — before being made available to all consumers with an Internet connection earlier this year. Eiley said CraveTV would likely get a boost from Shomi’s demise, helped by its HBO programming.

“It gives them, both Crave and Netflix, a little more breathing room in Canada,” Eiley said.

Shomi, the subscription VOD joint venture of Canadian service providers Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications, announced Monday that the multiscreen streaming service will be shutting down operations as of Nov. 30.

Shomi, which has been competing in the market against SVOD rivals such as Netflix and CraveTV, launched across Canada in August 2015 and sold for C$8.99 per month. A beta version of shomi debuted in November 2014.

RELATED: Shomi Opens Up

David Asch, SVP and GM of shomi and an exec who is late of Redbox, Frontier Communications and InDemand Networks who took on the day-to-day of the service in mid-2015, said several factors contributed to the decision.

“We’re really grateful to Canadians who enthusiastically invited us into their living rooms and took us with them on their phones, tablets and laptops,” Asch said, in a statement. “The business climate and online video marketplace have changed markedly in the last few years. Combined with the fact that the business is more challenging to operate than we expected, we’ve decided to wind down our operations. We’re proud of the great service we created and the role we played in the evolution of Canada’s video landscape.”

Shomi’s been optimized to run on several platforms, including Shaw and Rogers set-top boxes, Web browsers, smartphones and tablets, Xbox 360 and Xbox One consoles, the PlayStation 4, and Apple TV (via AirPlay). Earlier this month, shomi announced it had selected ThinkAnalytics for the service’s search and recommendation engine.

Shomi has not announced subscriber totals, but in an interview last fall (subscription required), Asch said the sub base was “ahead of where we expected them to be in our business plan.”

UPDATE: Shomi on Tuesday (Sept. 27) released a statement from Asch saying: “We recently approached 900K subs and even today we are not far off that number, which would likely make shomi a Top 10 service in North America.” 

Asch had said last fall he was also hopeful that content Netflix did not have, such as Amazon original Transparent, would help shomi stand apart in the market.

Shomi recently released some other data points – 17,698 episodes available to stream, 118 total series available, and 143 million total video plays. 

For fiscal Q3, Shaw disclosed it recorded a $51 million impairment of shomi.

Shomi, the multiscreen SVOD service from Canadian operators Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications, has expanded access to the Sony PlayStation 4.

The service, which launched across Canada  last August, is also offered on Web browsers, Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, Rogers and Shaw set-top boxes, Apple TV (via AirPlay), the Xbox 360, and has been optimized for the Google Chromecast streaming adapter. The shomi site notes that the service is “coming soon” to the Xbox One.

“Members have been asking for shomi on the PS4 system since we launched, and I’m thrilled we are now able to provide our service on this platform,”  Ann Tebo, shomi’s director, product management, said in a  statement. “With the addition of the PS4 system there are now four Internet-connected ways for members to get great shomi content on their TV screen.”

Update: You.i TV of Ottawa said shomi's deployment on the PS4 is the first app from the vendor to launch on a game console, and that it uses the same codebase that powers shomi's apps for iOS and Android devices. 

Shomi, which is tangling with Netflix in Canada, costs $8.99 per month, though new shomi customers are in line for a two-month free trial. Rogers introduced a major 4K initiative last year that will offer movies and TV shows on shomi in the pixel-packed format.

Nearly half (45%) of all TV viewers in Canada now use an OTT service such as Netflix, shomi, Crave TV or Club Illico, according to a new survey from Media Technology Monitor. 

Pursuing a new business services growth opportunity, Canada’s Rogers Communications this week introduced a cybersecurity offering in partnership with Trustwave.

Rogers said it cybersecurity platform, called leapfrog and slated for commercial launch in early 2016, will help Canadian businesses rapidly detect security breaches, something that can sometimes take up to two months for some businesses due to a clack of tools and resources.

Rogers said its cybersecurity offering is designed to scale, from  SMBs to large enterprises, and will offer real-time monitoring of client business network infrastructures, access to a team of security analysts, and a portfolio of diagnostic tools that scan for possible weaknesses.

"Cybersecurity is the number one concern for Canadian businesses of all sizes, and many lack the resources, time and expertise to manage the reality of cyber threats today" said Nitin Kawale, president of Rogers’s Enterprise Business Unit. "We are introducing solutions to our customers of all sizes, with local and global operations, that are backed by one of the world's cybersecurity leaders, Trustwave. These solutions are offered as a service to give our customers peace of mind knowing their networks and data are secured."

"In 2016, security spend in Canada will exceed $2 billion for the first time as organizations rally to defend themselves against cyber threats," added  David Senf, VP, infrastructure solutions group at IDC Canada. "Only a mere 6% of security spend comes from Canadian small businesses yet they employ 50% of all Canadian workers. This key segment of more than 1 million businesses has been underserved by the security market to date. IDC sees a strong shift among Canadian organizations towards managed security services, as they try to fill their increasing skills and knowledge gap."

Cybersecurity has become a key are of focus for the cable industry. A day of keynotes and sessions dedicated to cybersecurity was set aside for a symposium held prior to the 2015 SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in New Orleans. There,  keynoter John N. Stewart, the senior vice president and chief security and trust officer at Cisco Systems, said  that cybersecurity threats are a big, if not the biggest, risk posed to cable’s internal and external activities. He also said cybersecurity represents a potentially lucrative opportunity for MSOs as business and residential customers seek answers on how to come to grips with their unique security-related issues.

Canadian MSO Rogers Communications has launched an ambitious 4K initiative that includes a new set-top box, OTT streaming from Netflix and Shomi, live 4K broadcast TV coverage of select sporting events, and a gigabit broadband service to help tie it all together. 

Next year, Rogers said customers will gain access to more than 500 hours of 4K fare, including all 81 home games of the Blue Jays in HDR format on Sportsnet; more than 20 NHL in 4K on Sportsnet starting with the January 23 matchup of the Montreal  Canadiens and  Toronto Maple Leafs (also on Sportsnet);  and more than 100 hours of 4K movies and TV shows from Shomi, the SVOD multiscreen service co-owned by Rogers and Shaw Communications that’s now available across Canada.

Rogers also announced a partnership with Netflix that will support the OTT provider’s 4K lineup that includes originals such as Narcos, Marvel’s Daredevil, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Sense8, Grace and Frankie, Chef's Table, Bloodline, and House of Cards. In an apparent nod to Netflix’s Open Connect private CDN program, Rogers said it will link its network to Netflix servers.

Tied in, Rogers also said it will offer gigabit speeds to its entire footprint by the end of 2016, starting in downtown Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area. That service, called Rogers Ignite Gigabit, will be available to over four million homes when the deployment is complete.

Rogers has set up a web site for subs to get in line for the new 4K TV offering and the Ignite Gigabit Internet service (which will be uncapped), for $149.99.  Rogers.com/4K to reserve.

"4K TV sets have been in the market for some time and 40 per cent of all TV sales are likely to be 4K this holiday season. However, until now live TV broadcasts in 4K have been few and far between and customers have not been able to get 4K set top boxes," Guy Laurence, president and CEO of Rogers, said in a statement.

Fellow Canadian operator Videotron introduced a 4K/Ultra HD set-top in August, and has begun to pilot a gigabit residential service in Montreal that uses DOCSIS 3.0.  

In the U.S., DirecTV haslaunched a limited 4K-VOD service for its Genie platform and Samsung UHD TVs, and Comcast has launched a 4K streaming app for Samsung TVs. Comcast is also developing 4K-capable boxes for its X1 platform. Dish Network is nearing the debut of a 4K service that will run ona new UHD-capable Joey box.

It’s hard to think of Rogers Communications or the Canadian cable and telecom business without Phil Lind.

The company’s vice chairman and executive vice president of regulatory joined Ted Rogers 45 years ago, when Rogers’s little company had just north of 10,000 cable customers and a pair of radio stations.

In fact, it’s very hard to think of Rogers Communications ever being that small, since it has grown into a wireless, cable, telecom, broadband and media behemoth in Canada with about 29,000 employees, 9.5 million wireless customers, 2 million cable customers, 2 million broadband customers, 1.1 million wireline phone customers, 24 TV stations, 50 radio stations and more than 50 magazine titles.

DEALMAKER, TOO

Having been Ted Rogers’s copilot for four decades until the founder’s death in 2008, then continuing to lead the government relations and regulatory group since (not to mention being the eminence grise for the whole company, brokering deals, too), Lind has decided the time is now ripe to step aside. The 2012 Cable Hall of Fame inductee announced earlier this year he will give up his operational roles at the end of 2014, then working certain special projects for about three more years. He’s retaining his seat on the RCI board as well, where he is vice chairman. He’s retiring — but not leaving.

Lind joined Rogers in 1969, the same year Ted’s son Edward Rogers was born. Edward, now a Rogers board member himself and head of the Rogers family trust, which owns control of the corporation, joked before the company’s annual general meeting earlier this year he never was sure which debut was most important to his father that year — his or Lind’s.

“I began my career at Rogers 45 years ago, just after the 1968 Broadcasting Act was enacted and this commission was created,” Lind told Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission chairman Jean-Pierre Blais at the company’s appearance during September’s TV Policy Review hearing. “Since that time, Mr. Chairman, I have had the pleasure of appearing before you and all your predecessors. I reckon that I have represented Rogers at more than 100 broadcasting hearings over the past four and a half decades.”

That’s right, Lind has appeared before every single CRTC chairman there has ever been.

There are very few people left in the business with that kind of history and institutional knowledge, or who engender the amount of love and respect which the 72-year-old Lind does. “Phil has had a passion and a love for the company that goes far beyond the average employee’s commitment to their job,” Edward Rogers said. “I’d say he shared my father’s enthusiasm for the business like few others did. You could see that kind of excitement over the years.”

Shaw Communications founder JR Shaw said: “He’s always been a good friend to everyone in this industry. He’d always reach back and help us all, because Rogers was a front-runner.”

SAW U.S. ACTION

According to those who knew Lind best and have worked with him over the decades, it was loyalty, tenacity and people skills that led to his extraordinary business successes, on both sides of the border.

While those under the age of 45 or so might not recall, Rogers Cable was once a big deal in the States and Lind was one of the premier generals in the U.S. cable wars of the 1980s, when companies went from town to town trying to win cable franchises from local town councils. The company once famously promised to plant 10,000 trees in Portland, Ore., as part of its bid to win the franchise there.

With his “Road Warriors,” the group of executives and lawyers Lind put together to identify and claim territories (yes, there were Tshirts), Lind built up a sizable U.S. cable operation in places like Minneapolis; Portland, Ore.; Orange County, Calif.; and San Antonio for Rogers in the ’80s. “It was a gold rush,” Lee Sheehy, a longtime Lind friend and one of the Minneapolis lawyers who worked on many of the Rogers franchise bids, said. Many companies devoted serious resources and various tactics to win market after market.

“It was the Wild West,” said Colin Watson, Rogers Cable’s president at the time. “There were cases of people being caught with their hands in pockets … there were some that got caught and sent to jail, as I recall, for it. Everyone wanted the same franchises, and the bidding wars were extreme. The typical M.O. was to go in and get local investors, so you had a very local face to offset the Canadian aspect of the company. That formula worked very well for us.” And for a time, Rogers was a serious American cable player.

‘THANK YOU, CANADA’

“The stories are legend about Phil’s ability to create relationships and to bring insights,” added Sheehy. It was never easy to be the Canadian, the outsider, asking local American town councils to grant a cable franchise, so Rogers was often looking for an edge. While the company was bidding for Minneapolis, the American public was consumed by the U.S.-Iranian hostage crisis, and when Canadian diplomats helped smuggle six Americans out of the country, Lind had the idea to buy a full page ad in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune which proclaimed loudly “Thank You Canada,” but kept the ad’s buyers a secret.

“Phil had the political sophistication to try and listen to what the local communities wanted. Again, I think he brought an ear that some U.S. companies didn’t, who relied more on bravado,” Sheehy continued. “Phil had a subtlety and a little bit of the Canadian ability to listen to what the customer wanted and be responsive was my experience representing the company … Somewhere along the way, I said, ‘Phil, you should be the Canadian ambassador to the United States.’”

But in the late 1980s, Ted Rogers the visionary began telling people the future of communications was in cellular phones. However, taking that road wouldn’t be cheap and in order to fund wireless in Canada, Rogers made the decision to sell the U.S. cable clusters — very much to Lind’s chagrin.

Lind still tells anyone who asks that the cable-franchise wars were the most fun he ever had in business and it “broke his heart” to have to sell the American operations, said Missy Goerner, one of those Road Warriors who began working for Rogers when it purchased the San Antonio cable system she worked for in 1981 from UA-Columbia Cablevision.

According to contemporary reports in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, respectively, Rogers sold systems in Texas, California, Minnesota and Oregon, with a total of about 525,000 subscribers, to Paragon Cable for $1.3 billion in 1989. It then sold Maclean-Hunter cable operations with 550,000 customers in New Jersey, Michigan and Florida to Comcast in 1994 for $1.27 billion.

“But the quality of the man is — and how he was always — it was always Rogers company first, not his own personal feelings,” Goerner added. Lind worked hard to get the best deal possible for the company — a deal which very nearly fell apart thanks to a single clause in the franchise agreement with San Antonio.

Rogers had a deal to sell U.S. systems to a company which would become Paragon Cable. “They were kind of new in the cable business … so we got the top-of-the-market price, at that point,” she said. It was a multibillion- dollar deal — more than enough to help fund a telecom launch in Canada.

But there was a snag. San Antonio’s franchise agreement said that whatever the fairmarket value was of the system, the city had the option to buy it for 5% less. Rogers didn’t believe San Antonio would exercise the clause, but Lou Fox, the city manager at the time, convinced council to do it. “They could’ve cratered the entire U.S. sale,” Goerner said.

No amount of convincing and negotiation between the city and Rogers would work. And when Fox went on the radio to say he had Rogers “by the balls,” Ted Rogers was beside himself with anger. The deal looked scuttled because, seeing the battle in San Antonio, many of the other cities stopped negotiating their sales, too.

Lind was able to calm his boss down (another skill he was renowned for within Rogers) and Goerner managed to finagle one last meeting between he and Lind mere weeks before the Paragon deal was to expire.

“I said, look, give Phil one more chance to talk about this. He said, I’m going to a city manager’s meeting tomorrow in Charleston, South Carolina. He said if he wants to come talk to me, he’ll be there,” Goerner said.

‘OK, SIGN THE NAPKIN’

“Just he and Lou sat down for hours, until Phil took out a napkin, put it in front of Lou, and asked him to write down what number he had to get from Rogers in order to be willing to move forward on the transfer. Lou Fox took his pen out, and he wrote $10 million, which is what they figured it was worth to the city if they were to buy the system, and then flip it.

“Phil said ‘OK, sign the napkin.’ He signed it, Phil signed it and that napkin was what Lou took back with him to the city council — truly a napkin. He went back to the city council, and the city council approved the deal,” Goerner recalled.

The Road Warriors then fanned out across the U.S. in order to finish the rest of the franchise transfers and save Rogers’s American exit.

Lind would clearly relish playing in the U.S. cable sandbox, still. “I’d love to be in the Comcast war room right now,” he said in an interview. “There’s thousands of touch points and you have to imagine that taking care of a lot of them … I’m actually quite envious.”

At Rogers, Lind is also known as a champion of the media side of the business: he and Watson used to appear regularly — and live — on Rogers Cable 10 community access channel in the 1980s and ’90s to answer customer questions. What has become Rogers Sportsnet was his idea, he was the force behind CPAC (Canada’s C-SPAN) and he helped pioneer multicultural programming through the OMNI-TV brand.

But there’s one other important way Lind has moved those who have had the good fortune to work with him. On Canada Day in 1998, Lind suffered a significant stroke which very nearly claimed his life. He had to learn to speak, read and walk again at 56.

His fellow executives visited daily, helping with rehab, reading newspapers and keeping him informed about the business. Lind taught himself to write with his left hand and returned to work just over year later.

Lind did not slow down once he recovered. He continued to travel, do deals, lobby politicians, lead Rogers’ efforts in front of the CRTC, collect art, see his beloved Cleveland Browns (he has season tickets and was a close friend of the late Browns and Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell) and turn up at industry events. He was even front and center on a general-session panel at this past Cable Show in Los Angeles.

While he doesn’t like talking about himself too much, he admits he set himself a goal of five more years at Rogers after his stroke, something he thought would be a stretch. It’s been 16.

The most Lind will say about his physical limitations is “it’s been a struggle sometimes” — and thankfully note

how the iPhone, something he can operate with one hand, has so dramatically improved his life. “It’s fantastic,” he has often said of the device.

“He was at a point of his life where financially, he didn’t need to come back to work,” said Edward Rogers. “But he never hesitated in coming back and was a real example for many of us — meeting the challenges that life throws at you and continuing the work that you do. I think he was an inspiration for folks around here.”

Outlining some hard truths, Canadian mobile and cable service provider Rogers Communications launched a multi-year plan last week that included a reorganization of its operations and leadership team alongside a focus on overall growth and an overhauling of its customer experience.

Dubbed “Rogers 3.0,” the plan reflects feedback from customers, employees and shareholders, the company said, noting that it will focus on several strategic priorities, including overall growth, an overhaul of the customer experience, business services, the delivery of content everywhere, and a focus on innovation.

“Every day I marvel at what an amazing company Ted built, Rogers president and CEO Guy Laurence said in reference to company founder Ted Rogers, who died in December 2008 at the age of 75. "The mix of assets, the culture of innovation and depth of employee pride is extraordinary. But we've neglected our customers, and we've let our legacy of growth and innovation slip. The plan I've laid out will significantly improve the experience for our customers and re-establish our growth by better leveraging our assets and consistently executing as One Rogers."

The plan also comes with a reorganized management and operational structure, including a separation of Rogers’ customer and enterprise business units, while retaining its existing media business unit.  Additionally, all customer experience functions, including customer care call centers, field operations, go-to-market and online channels will be tied into one team reporting to Laurence.

Laurence said Rogers 3.0 will focus on “fewer, more impactful initiatives” under the new streamlined structure.

The new structure will also be led initially by the following exec team:

• Consumer Business Unit: Rob Bruce, President;
• Enterprise Business Unit: Larry Baldachin*, President;
• Media Business Unit: Keith Pelley, President;
• Customer Experience: Mike Adams*, Chief Customer Officer;
• Brand Management: Dale Hooper, Chief Brand Officer;
• Strategy, Wholesale & Development: Frank Boulben*, Chief Strategy Officer;
• Corporate Affairs: Phil Lind, EVP Regulatory and Vice Chairman;
• Legal: David Miller, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary;
• Human Resources: Jim Reid, Chief Human Resources Officer;
• Finance: Tony Staffieri, Chief Financial Officer;
• Information Technology: Linda Jojo, Chief Information Officer; and,
• Network: Bob Berner, Chief Technology Officer.

*Interim leader

With Rogers to be divided into three areas, Rob Bruce has decided to leave Rogers and agreed to help Laurence through a transition period until the end of year, Rogers said. In April, Phil Lind announced his plan to retire at the end of 2014, but has agreed to stay on for at least three more years in an advisory capacity and will remain on the Rogers board of directors and the Rogers Control Trust. An internal and external search has begun for all interim appointments, the company noted.

Rogers posted consolidated revenues of $3.02 billion, essentially flat from the year-ago quarter, while net income reached $307 million (66 cents per share), down from $353 million (80 cents per share) in the year-ago period.

On the wireless side, Rogers added a net 2,000 post-paid subs, versus 32,000, and posted a net loss of 73,000 prepaid subs, narrowed from a loss of 93,000 in the year-ago period.

Rogers lost 20,000 video subs in the quarter, giving it a total of 2.1 million, added 20,000 broadband subs for 1.98 million, and added 10,000 phone subs for 1.16 million. During the period, Rogers added 10,000 total service units, 8,000 fewer than it did in the first quarter of 2013.

Comcast rose two spots in Netflix’s monthly ISP Speed Index for April, making the MSO the third fastest among major broadband service providers tracked each month by the streaming video giant.

With its April coverage, Netflix also expanded to include Canadian ISPs, with Rogers Communications, which has been the topic of Netflix criticisms over the MSO’s metered bandwidth policies. Rogers is reportedly working on a streaming service that will rival Netflix.

Word of the latest jump by Comcast comes nearly three months after Netflix reluctantly agreed to in  paid interconnection deal with Comcast.  Netflix has since come out against the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal and has likewise called for “stronger” network neutrality rules, labeling such interconnection deals as an “arbitrary tax” on over-the-top video service providers. Netflix’s preference is for ISPs to join Open Connect, its private content delivery network that relies on Netflix-supplied network edge caches.

According to Netflix’s April rankings, Comcast delivered an average Netflix stream of 2.77 Mbps during primetime hours, up from 2.50 Mbps in March, causing both Suddenlink Communications and Charter Communications to each drop one spot in the rankings. Cablevision remained atop with a 3 Mbps average , followed by Cox Communications’ (2.90 Mbps).

Among other monthly movers, Windstream and Frontier Communications each rose a spot, while CenturyLink Communications DSL dropped three spots, to No. 12, and AT&T U-verse dipped one spot, to No. 13.

With smaller ISPs factored in, Google Fiber remained on top with an average of #.58 Mbps, followed by San Juan Cable (3.20 Mbps), Midcontintent Communications (3.07 Mbps), Choice Cable Puerto Rico (3.05 Mbps), EPB (3.03 Mbps), CDE Lightband (3.01 Mbps), and RCN and Grande Communications (3.01 Mbps).

April’s rankings also marked the first from Netflix in many months since it added Canadian ISP results.

Among individual Canadian ISPs, two fiber-based providers – Bell Canada (3.19 Mbps) and Bell Aliant) – were tops, followed by Shaw Communications (3 Mbps), Videotron (2.82 Mbps), and Cogeco (2.78 Mbps). Rogers Communications, at 1.67 Mbps, was last on the list, at No. 14.

On a country-by-country basis, the Netherlands (3.49 Mbps average) was the king of Netflix streams, followed by Sweden (3.21 Mbps), Denmark (3.17 Mbps) and Norway (3.06 Mbps).

Canada (2.52 Mbps) was fifth, outranking the U.S.’s average of (2.33 Mbps), good for eighth.  Costa Rica (1.18 Mbps) was last in Netflix’s country-based rankings for April.