Shaw’s profit drops 24% on startup/restructuring costs, pay-TV defections

Canadian cableco Shaw Communications posted a 24% year-on-year drop in quarterly net profit to around CAD168 million (USD134 million) for the three months ended 28 February 2015, despite revenues which rose nearly 5% to CAD1.34 billion, as a boost from its recently acquired data centre operator ViaWest was offset by declining pay-TV subscriptions, setup costs for its joint venture subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service ‘shomi’ and restructuring costs. In its second fiscal quarter Shaw lost a net 58,000 revenue generating units (RGUs) including 36,000 cable TV subscribers and over 8,000 satellite TV customers to end February with nearly 6.1 million RGUs across the TV, internet and telephony segments, with the company attributing ‘over half’ the losses to a regulatory change removing a 30-day cancellation notice period from customers’ contracts.