Approval has been issued by the Competition Bureau of Canada for the purchase of BCE Inc of Astral Media Inc. The sale, priced at Can$3 billion has only passed the first hurdle as it still needs to obtain approval from the Canadian telecommunications regulator.
The approval is not without its caveat, as BCE must sell off some of Astral's pay per view and specialty television programming, including some Disney programming. The bureau further added that the BCE should not "impose restrictive bundling requirements" on any other provider seeking to also carry the movie channels Astral owns in either French or English language.
The deal was closed in 2011 when BCE bought Canada's largest private broadcaster CTV. BCE retains eight of Astral's TV services, all in the French language except the Movie Network. BCE would also be selling six television joint ventures of Astral to Corus Entertainment together with two other radio stations for a total price tag of Can$400.6 million.
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