BCE and Bell Globemedia

Toronto-based Bell Globemedia (70% owned by telecommunications giant Bell Canada Enterprises, 30% by Thomson) encompasses a national newspaper, a leading ISP, multimedia interests and a national commercial television network. For an Australian equivalent think of the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), Bigpond and the Nine tv network under the control of Telstra.

     the group 

Bell Globemedia encompasses -

• CTV, Canada's largest commercial television network (including 18 wholly-owned stations reaching over 80% of the Canadian market), in competition with CanWest's network
• the Globe & Mail, the nation's largest national newspaper
• specialty cable channels CTV Newsnet, the Comedy Network, Discovery Channel, Outdoor Life Network, and Report on Business Television (50%)
• national ISP Sympatico-Lycos, with around a third of online users.

The group has 4,000 employees and annual revenue of C$4.3 billion. BCE controls 70.1%; while Thomson interests have the rest of the equity. It competes with CanWest (broadcast and newspapers) and Rogers (cable, broadcast and magazines).

BCE is Canada's 14th-largest enterprise by revenue and in 2001 was 1st by profit. Around 80% of its revenues and 90% of profits are attributable to its Bell Canada arm.

A chronology of the group is here.

     Holdings 

The following page provides an indication of BCE and Bell Globemedia holdings.

     Studies 

For CTV see Susan Gittins' CTV - The Television Wars (Toronto: Stoddart 01). For the Thomsons see the separate profile.

For Bell Canada's early history see Robert Collins's A Voice from Afar, The History of Telecommunications in Canada (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson 77), E B Ogle's Long Distance Please: The Story of the TransCanada Telephone System (Toronto: Collins 79). That account is carried forward in Pa Bell: A Jean de Grandpré & the Meteoric Rise of Bell Canada Enterprises (Toronto: Random 92) by Lawrence Surtees.

Insights into 'convergence' and regulation in Canada are provided by Robert Babe's excellent Telecommunications in Canada: Technology, Industry & Government (Toronto: Uni of Toronto Press 90) and the slighter Building an Industry: History of Cable Television in Canada (Lawrencetown Beach: Pottersfield Press 00) by insider Ken Easton.

Richard Doyle's Hurley-Burley: A Time At The Globe (Toronto: Macmillan Canada 90) and David Hayes' Power & Influence: The Globe & Mail and the News Revolution (Toronto: Key Porter 92) deal with the Globe.




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