fund as part of MH buyout bid

Rogers Communications has announced a $101.9 million ribbon to tie the knot on its Maclean Hunter buyout bid. In its application to the crtc, the cable giant says over the next five years it will spend $54.4 million on cable systems improvement; $13.5 to fund new Canadian production; $6.4 million on research and development for video-on-demand systems; $8 million on the satellite system Head End in the Sky; $6.1 million on signal development; $3 million on multimedia research and development; and the rest on community programming, journalism and radio development.

Alberta fund

The production allotment includes $7.5 million to create an Alberta Television Production Fund, $4 million aimed specifically at documentary production and a $2 million boost to the Rogers Telefund (bringing that fund up to $15 million).

The Cogeco Program Development Fund, an arm of the Maclean Hunter Fund to assist Canadian tv series, is a private organization and would not be affected by the merger.

Andra Sheffer, executive director of the mh fund, suggests the crtc will be looking to Rogers to increase its production endowment, as the commission did in 1990 when the $29 million Cogeco fund was set up (the fund is now worth $35 million).

Kevin DeWalt, chair of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association, says, ‘We are surprised that the amount (allocated to production) isn’t higher, and in terms of getting the commission to agree (to the merger), Rogers has to look at what benefits the Canadian production community will get as a result of this allotment.’

Analogy

In the application, Rogers qualifies the takeover by comparing it to other major mergers (such as Time Warner and News Corp.) with the message that ‘Canadians will lose control of the means to describe themselves’ if they are not able to compete with the majors in the multimedia universe.

Rogers asks: ‘Do we want to have Canadian companies sitting at the table and saying this is what our country believes in, or are we simply going to end up as branch plants of media conglomerates from other countries?’

Industry representatives whose endorsements appear in the application include cbc president Tony Manera and Keith Kelly of the Canadian Conference of the Arts.

Rogers vice-chairman Phil Lind says if the merger goes through, it would create a single entity worth about $3 billion in annual revenues.