Foreign players ‘eating our lunch’: Péladeau
Quebecor Inc. chief executive Pierre Karl Péladeau called for new broadcast regulations to deal with online competitors after his company reported “disappointing ” results in its media division.
The Montreal-based company said Thursday that media revenue fell to $187 million in the three months ended June 30, down 6.5 per cent from the same period last year due to soft advertising revenue
and weakness at its TVA sports unit since the Montreal Canadiens didn’t make the NHL playoffs.
While Quebecor’s overall financial results met with analysts’ expectations thanks to continued success in its larger telecommunications division — telecom revenue rose 2.5 per cent to $847 million, pushing overall adjusted earnings up 3.2 per cent to $417 million — Péladeau said the challenges in the media unit reinforce his thesis that broadcast rules need to evolve.
“What we’re seeing is foreign media-slash-internet companies that are eating our lunch,” Péladeau said on a conference call with analysts. “Will the regulator continue to let that situation happen? I guess that they need a little ... wake up and find out that we need to have a new regulatory landscape.”
It’s not clear exactly what regulatory changes Péladeau has in mind, but he noted the traditional model required operators to have licences if they wanted to broadcast
something in a protected national territory. Over the past decade, that has changed as consumers increasingly access content over the internet, where content purveyors such as YouTube and Netflix operate
outside the regulatory regime.
In June, the federal government announced a seven-member panel to review broadcasting and telecommunications laws in a bid to modernize legislation for the digital era. At the time, the government said that any player that profits in Canada should contribute to Canadian content, although it didn’t specify how.
Quebecor’s call for new rules comes after it completed its deal to buy the entirety of Quebecor Media from the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec for $1.69 billion. The deal closed on June 22.