Darren Entwistle, CEO of Telus Inc.
With all the other major players in Canada's telecommunications industry now owning media assets, it's tempting to see Telus Corp. as the odd one out. But chief executive officer Darren Entwistle says the company is not shopping around to get into the broadcast business.
Mr. Entwistle reaffirmed Telus's position after its annual general meeting on Thursday.
"Telus is perpetually seeking out content … We do think content is important," he said. "But our strategy is to remain a pure play within the telecommunications area."
His statements come as Telus and other companies prepare to go before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission next month, for a hearing "vertical integration" - when companies that own television content are themselves owned by those that distribute video over cable, satellite, and increasingly over Internet lines and mobile devices.
The hearing was brought on by major media deals last year, which saw Telus's fierce competitor in Western Canada, Shaw Communications Inc., buy the CanWest television stations. Also last year, BCE Inc. bought the broadcast arm of CTVglobemedia. This added media consolidation to the industry; Rogers Communications Inc. and Quebecor Inc. already own broadcasters as well.
Telus will go to the CRTC hearing in June, to ask for more safeguards in the industry. It wants to prevent competitors from keeping the content they own for their own TV services, or for extra video offerings over wireless networks.
The media sector has begun to rebound as the economy recovers, with larger television advertising revenues coming to broadcasters.
"When you look at the performance of the cable networks, they have improved coming out of the turn, particularly the specialty channels. The CanWest channels and the CTV channels have all done well," said Madhav Hari, an analyst with Standard & Poor's Ratings Services.
But Telus's focus remains on its core telecom business.
"We'll take our money and invest it in broadband, wireline and wireless technologies. That's the area we know," Mr. Entwistle said.
The company said profit was $328-million in the first three months of the year, up 19 per cent, compared with $273-million during the same period last year.
Revenue came in above analyst expectations at $2.5-billion, compared to $2.3-billion a year earlier, and was mainly driven by wireless data revenue, which grew 44 per cent.
Telus said it is confident in its future growth and will pay out a higher dividend of 55 cents in July. That's two-and-a-half cents more than it had planned.