 Final logo used from 2012 to 2023 | |
 Shaw's offices in the Shaw Campus | |
| Formerly | Capital Cable Television Company, Ltd. (1966–1983) Shaw Cablesystems Ltd. (1983–1993) |
|---|---|
| Company type | Public |
| TSX: SJR.A (Class A) (voting) (1983-2023) TSX: SJR.B (Class B) (non-voting) (1983-2023) NYSE: SJR (until 2023) | |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 1966; 59 years ago (1966) (as Capital Cable Television Company, Ltd.) Edmonton,Alberta, Canada |
| Founder | JR Shaw |
| Defunct | April 3, 2023; 2 years ago (2023-04-03) |
| Fate | Merged withRogers Communications |
| Successor | Rogers Communications |
| Headquarters | , Canada |
Key people | |
| Products | Cable television,high speed internet,telephone,satellite television, network and specialty broadcasting, logistics tracking, radio |
| Revenue |  CAD $5.509 billion(2021)[3] |
| CAD $2.161 billion(2019)[1] | |
| CAD $986 million(2021)[3] | |
Number of employees | 9,500 (2020) |
| Parent | Shawcor (1966–1970s) |
| Divisions | Shaw Broadcast Services,Shaw Direct |
| Subsidiaries | Freedom Mobile (2015–2023) Shaw Mobile (Acquired byRogers Wireless) |
| ASN | |
| Website | www |
.svg){kind=logo}
Shaw Communications Inc. was aCanadiantelecommunications company which provided telephone, Internet, television, and mobile services. The company was founded in 1966 as Capital Cable Television Company, Ltd. byJR Shaw in Edmonton. The company was acquired by and amalgamated intoRogers Communications in 2023; most operations were rebranded to the Rogers brand beginning in July of that year, with services and sponsorships in former Shaw markets having used the transitional brandRogers together with Shaw for promotional purposes.[4][5]
At the time of its acquisition by Rogers, Shaw provided home telecommunications services primarily in Alberta andBritish Columbia andsatellite television nationally. It also operated smallercable television systems inSaskatchewan,Manitoba, andNorthern Ontario.
The company also provided mobile services through its subsidiaryFreedom Mobile, under both the Freedom andShaw Mobile brands, in areas of Alberta, British Columbia, andSouthern Ontario; Freedom was sold toVidéotron simultaneously with the Rogers merger. The company's chief competitor for home telecommunications inwestern Canada wasTelus Communications.
Shaw was founded in 1966 byJR Shaw asCapital Cable Television Company, Ltd. inEdmonton, Alberta.[6] It was originally a subsidiary ofShawcor, JR's father's firm, but the business was split from Shawcor in the 1970s.[7][8] The company changed its name to Shaw Cablesystems Ltd. (after founder and chairman JR Shaw) and went public on theTSX in 1983. The company grew during the 1980s and 1990s through acquisitions of firms includingClassicomm in the Toronto area,Access Communications in Nova Scotia,Fundy Cable in New Brunswick,Trillium Cable in Ontario, Telecable inSaskatchewan,[9] Greater Winnipeg Cablevision[10] (serving areas east of the Red River), andVideon Cablesystems ofWinnipeg (serving areas west of the Red River), which, back in 1998, had itself previously acquiredVidéotron's assets in Alberta.[11] However, two swaps, in 1994 and 2001, withRogers Cable have resulted in its assets being restricted toWestern Canada and a few areas ofNorthern Ontario.[12] In 1999, Shaw spun out its media properties into a second publicly traded company,Corus Entertainment.[13][14] In 2001 the Moffat family soldVideon Cablesystems to Shaw.
Prior to 2003, Shaw owned cable systems in the United States previously owned byMoffat Communications, serving six communities inFlorida (EasternPasco County,Clermont,Palm Coast,Ormond Beach,West Palm Beach andDoral), and theHouston,Texas suburbs ofKingwood,Lake Conroe andLake Livingston. In February 2003, the Florida systems would be sold toTime Warner Cable (with the West Palm Beach and Doral systems later sold toComcast, and the other systems spun off toBright House Networks), while the Texas systems were sold to Cequel III, as part of its then-Cebridge Connections subsidiary (nowSuddenlink Communications).[15][16]
In 2008, Shaw entered theAWSspectrum auction with the intention of possibly becoming a wireless phone provider. The auction ended July 2008, giving Shaw Communications enough spectrum to build a wireless network in its home provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba andOntario.[17] This spectrum ultimately went unused and was sold toRogers Communications in January 2013.[18]
In July 2009, Shaw announced its acquisition ofMountain Cablevision; in September, Rogers sued Shaw to block the sale, citing violations of anon-compete clause. However, the suit was quickly dismissed by the Ontario Superior Court.[19][20] The purchase was approved by the CRTC on October 22, 2009.[21][22] The acquisition was Shaw's first cable property east ofSault Ste. Marie since the 2001 swaps with Rogers andCogeco. Shaw's re-entry into Southern Ontario would be short-lived, as its Hamilton system would be resold to Rogers in January 2013 as part of a deal which also saw unused wireless spectrum sold to the company, and saw Rogers sell its stake in specialty channelTVtropolis.[18]
On April 30, 2009, Shaw announced a deal to acquire three television stations —CHWI-TV inWindsor, Ontario,CKNX-TV inWingham, Ontario andCKX-TV inBrandon, Manitoba — fromCTVglobemedia. CTV had indicated that it would shut down the stations, all of which were incurring extensive financial losses, later in the year if a buyer could not be found, and had placed them on the market at a price of just $1 each.[23] However, it was reported on June 30, 2009, that Shaw had backed out of the deal and was declining to complete the purchase.[24] CHWI-TV would remain on the air as is; CKNX-TV would become a repeater ofLondon stationCFPL-TV in September 2009, while CKX-TV would close down entirely in October 2009.
In February 2010, Shaw announced an agreement with the financially troubledCanwest, whereby Shaw would buy an 80% voting interest, and 20% equity interest, in the restructured entity of Canwest, pending approvals from the CRTC and others.[25] Three months later, following negotiations with rival bidders, the company said it would purchase the entirety of Canwest's broadcasting assets, including the interests in theCW Media subsidiary partially held byGoldman Sachs Capital Partners.[26] Canwest's newspapers were not part of the Shaw deal and were sold separately toPostmedia Network.
The acquisition was completed on October 27, 2010, after CRTC approval for the sale was announced on October 22, forming theShaw Media division.[27]
In November 2012, Shaw underwent a corporate re-branding developed by the Vancouver-based agency Rethink, introducing an updated logo and slogan ("You won't miss a thing"), along with a new promotional campaign featuring the animated characters Bit and Bud—robots who lived in a representation of Shaw's "pipe". The campaign drew comparisons toBell Canada's former beaver characters ofFrank and Gordon, which were overseen by Shaw's then-new chief marketing officer Jim Little while he was at Bell.[28][29]
In April 2013, Shaw Business Solutions took overEnmax's Envision subsidiary, which had built a fibre-optic network throughoutCalgary. The acquisition was completed for $225 million.[30]
In 2014, Shaw partnered withRogers Communications to launchShomi, a subscription video on demand service.[31]
In February 2015, Shaw announced that they would close operations for service call centres in Edmonton, Calgary and Kelowna, and consolidate operations in Victoria, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Montreal. 1,600 of Shaw's 14,000 employees were affected by the consolidation and cuts.[32] The company offered affected employees the option to relocate to its centralized offices, apply for a new job at their location, or leave the company with a severance package for former employees unable to relocate.[32][33]
In 2013, Shaw attempted to begin developing anIPTV-based platform for its television services. However, after experiencing issues developing the platform, Shaw took a $55 million write-down in June 2015, and announced that it was licensingComcast's cloud-basedXfinity X1 architecture.[34][35] In January 2016, Shaw launched itsmobile television app FreeRange TV, based on X1 infrastructure, which allows Shaw subscribers to stream selected TV channels and on-demand content.[36][37] On January 11, 2017, Shaw launched its X1-based cable service, "BlueSky", in Calgary.[38] Shaw later launched Comcast's Xfinity xFi whole-home Wi-Fi platform under the "BlueCurve" branding.[39]
On December 16, 2015, Shaw announced its proposed acquisition of independent wireless providerWind Mobile from its investors in a deal worth approximately $1.6 billion.[40] The transaction closed on March 1, 2016.[41] Under Shaw, the company was renamed Freedom Mobile in November 2016, coinciding with the launch of its4G LTE network.[42] The acquisition of Wind was funded by a reorganization in April 2016, which saw theShaw Media unit transferred to Corus Entertainment,[43] in exchange for $1.85 billion in cash and 71,364,853 class Bnon-voting shares of Corus.[44] The sale did not include Shaw's 50% stake in theShomi streaming service andCJBN-TV Kenora; Shomi was shut down in November 2016 and CJBN-TV Kenora was shut down in January 2017.[43][45]
On March 15, 2021, Rogers announced that it would acquire Shaw for $26 billion, subject to regulatory and shareholder approval.[46] This proposed acquisition was criticized by public lobby groups likeOpenMedia, as a move that would reduce national competition in the Canadian wireless communication market by removing one of the four major competitors from the market.[47]
For the sale to go ahead, the CRTC ordered Rogers to divestFreedom Mobile. It was reported on June 17, 2022 thatQuebecor, a media and telecommunications company based in Quebec, intended to acquire the company for 2.85 billion.[48] The CRTC approved the merger on March 24, 2022.[49]
On May 9, 2022, theCompetition Bureau announced an application to the Competition Tribunal to block the transaction due to its effects on the wireless market.[50][51]
On August 1, 2022, Rogers announced that the merger was expected to be completed at the end of the year; however, on October 25, 2022, it was announced that the Rogers-Shaw merger had been rejected as proposed.[52] On January 24, 2023, Canada's Federal Court of Appeal allowed the merger to proceed.[53] The merger was approved by the federal government on March 31, 2023, and completed on April 3.[54][55] Immediately following the transaction, Shaw Communications wasamalgamated into Rogers Communications, and no longer exists as a separate entity, though some subsidiaries such as Shaw Cablesystems may still exist as distinct legal entities.[56]
Shaw was the parent ofShaw Broadcast Services (previously Shaw Satellite Services, Canadian Satellite Communications, or Cancom) and, through Shaw Broadcast Services,[57]Shaw Direct, one of Canada's two nationaldirect broadcast satellite providers. For many years it also owned a number of radio stations and specialty television services; these assets were later spun off intoCorus Entertainment in an effort to satisfy a now-repealed CRTC policy discouraging cross-ownership of cablesystems and specialty services.
In December 2010, Shaw filed complaints with the CRTC to have competing internet video services such asNetflix classified as broadcasters under Canadian law.[58] In the same month, Shaw introducedusage-based billing on internet plans and lowered plan caps an average of 25% while introducing overage fees of $1 to $2 per gigabyte.[59] On February 8, 2011, Shaw agreed to put a hold on usage-based billing for its services and to this date continues to not charge customers any overages for surpassing Internet data caps.[60]
Following the completion of the Arrangement, Rogers and Shaw, as Rogers' then wholly-owned subsidiary, completed a vertical short form amalgamation [...]
| International | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
