By David Farrell
Quebecor sees a revenue boost, while Shaw eyes a deal for the ages
Quebecor's telecommunications segment grew its revenues by $142.2M in 2020 compared to the year before and its Videotron division significantly increased its revenues from customer equipment sales and internet access.
Meanwhile shareholders of Shaw Communications got a nice boost in their investment when Rogers first offered its $26B takeover. But the company’s soaring shares were met with plenty of skepticism about the deal’s potential to be completed, at least in its present form. – Jacob Lorinc, The Star
It’s time to cut Facebook down in size
it seems unlikely that there has ever been a company, government, or organization that encompasses as many humans under its purview as Facebook does. The British Empire ruled over 412 million people at one point, or 23 per cent of the world’s population at the time.
But even that is nothing compared to the 2.8 billion people who use Facebook every month.
That’s 35 per cent of the entire world’s people, and even more shockingly, a full 60 per cent of the people who are online. – Navneet Lang, The Star
Corus announces global deals
Toronto-based Corus Studios has struck a deal with Hulu for more than 200 episodes across home renovation, real estate and food verticals — its largest U.S. distribution deal to date.
Elsewhere, Quebecor Content secured French language rights to Corus Studios content, adding 29 hours of programming to its slate, Discovery has picked up content for Germany and Turkey, and other deals include deals with broadcasters in Germany, Poland and Australia. – Jillian Morgan, RealScreen
Trump's plan to start his own social media platform is doomed to failure
Donald Trump's plan to create a new social media platform is doomed to fail, experts have told Insider, with the former president unlikely to extend his following beyond a dwindling number of his remaining supporters.
Kicked off Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube after the Capitol riot on January 6, the former president has spent the last few months in the digital wilderness, resorting to issuing press statements via email. – Thomas Colson, Business Insider
Facebook Outrage of the Week
One of the worst kept secrets in online marketing is that product reviews you read online are completely unreliable.
One study revealed that over 70% of headphone reviews on Amazon were given a perfect five stars. The only problem was that the text of many of the reviews were stolen from products like soap dispensers.
And guess where a huge marketplace for buying and selling fake reviews is centered? BINGO! According to The Guardian,"...unscrupulous traders buy fake positive reviews...or hit competitors with fraudulent negative reviews – (that are) frequently co-ordinated on Facebook and Instagram."
As a result, over a year ago Facebook was forced to enter into an agreement with a UK regulatory body, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), to "“better identify, investigate and remove groups... where fake and misleading reviews were being traded..."
A year went by and guess what? Facebook didn't do shit. The CMA had to intervene again.
This week Facebook removed 16,000 groups from its platform that were trading in fake reviews. Sixteen thousand. You can't make this shit up. – Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian
