How the MTS-BCE deal will impact local TV viewers still unclear

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/05/2016 (3807 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a huge, complicated deal for the telecommunications industry, but exactly what the pending acquisition of Manitoba Telecom Services by industry giant BCE Inc. will mean for local television viewers who subscribe to MTS TV remains something of an out-of-focus picture.

The full impact of the deal, both in the larger industry context and in terms of how it will affect individual cable subscribers, won’t be known until late this year or early in 2017, after all the necessary regulatory approvals have been granted and MTS’s shareholders have formally endorsed the transaction.

Early Monday afternoon, MTS chief customer officer Heather Tulk was unable to say whether MTS TV will be rebranded, or how the deal might eventually affect pricing and channel-roster availability for customers currently subscribing to MTS TV services.

“The first step is to get all the necessary regulatory approvals for the transaction, and then, of course, shareholders will have to vote on the plan,” said Tulk. “There are a lot of steps down the road; as we get through some of those steps, there may be some information available prior to closing, but most of it will really be closer to the actual closing date or after.”

The thinking here, however, is that there are some elements of the looming Bell takeover of MTS that could benefit local TV viewers, but there are other factors in this multibillion-dollar business-acquisition equation that should make customers in this market somewhat uncomfortable.

The upside of the proposed deal, for TV viewers, is that Bell’s massive scale and national reach allow it to invest in products and technology that regionally based (and more modestly budgeted) MTS simply couldn’t consider.

“As we go forward, there are a lot of incredibly exciting things happening in IPTV (Internet protocol television, meaning TV service that is delivered via the Internet rather than through traditional cable or satellite delivery systems) around the world, new features coming down the pipe, that perhaps we at MTS might have struggled to invest in on our own,” said Tulk. “But we’re looking forward to, in partnership with Bell, being able to bring those new features to market faster for our customers.”

Bell’s high-end IPTV service, Fibe TV, is similar to but in some ways superior to MTS’s Ultimate TV offering, Tulk added, so the transition for MTS TV customers should be smooth.

“What we do know is that Bell’s Fibe TV product and the MTS Ultimate TV product are very compatible IPTV evolutionary products,” she explained. “That being said, the Bell Fibe TV service does have a few feature functionalilties that we (MTS) don’t currently have, which you can definitely expect this transaction will allow us to bring to the market.”

Tulk said possible enhancements to MTS’s high-end TV service could include access to Netflix directly through the digital cable box, the ability to restart programs that are already in progress when the TV is turned on, and a “trending” option that informs viewers which video-on-demand titles are most popular at any given moment.

But the arrival of Bell as a full-scale provider of TV service in Manitoba (Bell’s satellite-TV option has been available in this province for many years) could also create down-the-road issues for consumers. Cable providers, in general, have never been beloved by the public, but in an industry in which most companies tend to be viewed negatively their customers, Bell has often distinguished itself as the least popular of all.

Consider this recent example: earlier this year, the federal broadcast regulator required all TV-services to begin offering a stripped-down “skinny basic” package of channels at a price of no more than $25 per month. Bell’s response, according to media reports based on leaked internal documents, was to instruct its sales staff to de-emphasize the new option, not mentioning it unless customers specifically asked about it and not offering any deals or incentives that might encourage subscribers to consider the low-cost package.

And while most other providers included the major U.S. broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox — in their skinny basic packages, as allowed by the CRTC, Bell opted not to include them, placing them instead in a bundle that is available at a significant additional cost.

Clearly, the encouragement to be found in the opportunities offered by Bell’s corporate clout must be balanced against the feeling of unease created by BCE’s treatment of its customers.

It will be interesting to see which perception of BCE — an industry giant with the wherewithal to bring superior service to this province, or a big media-sector bully whose profits-before-people reputation has been well earned — eventually takes hold in Manitoba.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @BradOswald