Thread: ExpressVu 1st QTR Results...4000 new subs vs 12,000 last yr...Avg Rev up to $57/month

It's interesting to note Shaw senior management only stated "they" are not for sale. There wasn't so much as a whimper about whether they were in a buying mood.

Star Choice, with 872k customers, is stagnating but could be said to be profitable on an ongoing basis. But there are 10 years of expenses piled up that the original investor (or his next generation family) may wish to find a way to "surface" (to use Michael Sabia's prescient term) this value.

Spinning off Star Choice, in a merger with Bell ExpressVu (1824k customers), which is also stable as a "going concern", might make sense. Satellite radio is about the reduce from 2 to 1 players: why not TV?

And it might make sense for the new 2.7m customer company to be independent of both original parents and even split the satellite obligations into Regular and Premium -- one brand being SD only providing great service with one satellite; the other brand offering all the bells and whistles at a higher price.

Question is: what would the Shaws do with all that new found cash?

Probably kicks Telus's a$$ with a major wireless push, which is already commited to, just a matter of timing.

The 2 provider, 1 system model collapsed in the DSS arena when DirecTV purchased the Premium Provider USSB. (They carried HBO/Showtime franchises while DTV carried cablenets)

I suppose no different that paying a different LD company than your local loop provider, but these seem like such antiquated notions.

There are certainly the ingredients to have a superb service with such a joint venture with Bell bringing it's HD content to the table and Shaw/Starchoice bringing a secure CA, and award winning customer service.

Imagine how nice it would be to have the best of everything.

As much as I do not like Hugh, I would take his word on this subject way before I would believe BEV.

It's funny how people keep quoting "customer service" as a strong point for *C in a business sense. Investors could care less about it.

They do if customers leave because yours sucks.

But in terms of a business plan, I would venture that if a company is adding subs, but spending less on customer service, that's probably a positive in terms of investment.

But you've failed to factor that when adding a new sub, there is a significant capital cost to do so.
I think they call it Cost Of Acquization (COA).
This would include the heavy subsidy of the box and any promotional credits.
Our couse they hope to recoup that investment over the long term, but if customer service is a factor in people not staying, then that translates into a real dollar loss and is almost impossible to recover from.

In addition high churn rates could make it difilcult to make good budgets whereas a stable and managed growth is actually fiscally more responsible and goes to a longer visionary approach rather than a shotgun approach.

As a banker/invester, I'd prefer to do business with a better managed company that has a sustainable plan with less volatility.