Mr. Peddie: Corus was created in September 1999. The assets were spun out of Shaw Communications, which is a large cable operator here in Canada. At the time, Corus was 11 radio stations and a number of cable television networks. We had revenue of approximately C160 million. That number has now grown to close to C700 million in the space of two and a half years, and we have acquired C1.7 billion in acquisitions. We are now Canada's largest radio operator in terms of audience and revenue with 52 stations and we are the most watched cable network in Canada and, with the acquisition of our content business, we are a leading international producer and distributor of children's animated programming.
TWST: How were you able to move ahead so fast?
Mr. Peddie: We split Corus off from Shaw for a couple of reasons: we
wanted to increase shareholder value; we wanted to have a focused
management that could drive these particular assets; we wanted access to
capital. There were also regulatory considerations. In 1998 the
regulations changed in Canada so that there was now the ability to own
more than two radio stations in a particular market. We were able to go
to what was referred to as 'duopoly,' where you could have two AMs and
two FMs in those markets that had more than eight radio stations. As a
result, there was a tremendous opportunity here in Canada ' as there was
in the US ' to start to acquire radio stations. And as you can see by
our acquisition strategy, we increased from 11 to 52. In 2001, the
regulatory body, the CRTC, removed its regulations that prohibited cable
companies and their affiliates from acquiring cable networks and, as a
result, we were able to acquire some additional cable networks as part
of our acquisition strategy.
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