Shaw 2014 Annual Report Download - page 17

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Shaw Communications Inc.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
August 31, 2014
The Canadian television broadcasting market is comprised of a number of English, French, and
third language stations and services that operate in different segments of the market. The
“Conventional” broadcast sector includes government owned public networks, such as the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (“CBC”), as well as privately owned station groups and
networks, such as Global and the CTV Television Network (“CTV” owned by BCE Inc.). The
“Specialty and Pay” sector includes Specialty television services, such as Showcase, History,
and HGTV Canada (all owned by Shaw), TSN (owned by BCE Inc.), and Sportsnet (owned by
Rogers), which provide special interest programming including news, sports, arts, lifestyle and
entertainment programming.
Global reaches approximately 95% of Canada’s population through 12 over-the-air (“OTA”)
conventional television stations. Global offers a programming mix of entertainment programs
and news that includes hit programs such as The Blacklist, Sleepy Hollow, Bones, NCIS,
NCIS:LA, Hawaii Five-O, Rookie Blue, Elementary and the reality series Survivor, Big Brother
and Big Brother Canada. Global offers news through its early-evening network newscast Global
National and delivers local news programs to a number of markets. Global expanded its news
line-up in 2012 and 2013 with the launch of morning news programming in Toronto, Regina,
Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Montreal and Halifax, and continues to focus on on-line and mobile
platforms to reach its audiences.
The Specialty television services owned and operated by the Media division comprise 19
channels, including History, Food Network Canada, Showcase, HGTV Canada, Slice and
National Geographic Canada. In 2014 Media announced the rebranding of two existing
channels to FYI and Crime + Investigation which took place early in fiscal 2015. In 2013
Media launched Global News: BC1, a dedicated 24 hour all news Specialty channel in the
province of British Columbia and acquired the remaining equity interest in TVtropolis
(subsequently rebranded DTOUR). During 2013 Media also entered into a number of
transactions with Corus Entertainment Inc. (“Corus”) to optimize its portfolio of specialty
channels, agreeing to sell its interests in ABC Spark and Historia and Series+ and to acquire an
additional 20% interest in Food Network Canada. The ABC Spark and Food Network Canada
transactions were completed during 2013 and the Historia and Series+ transaction closed in
2014.
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