Shaw Communications

Shaw was founded in 1966 by JR Shaw as Capital Cable Television Company, Ltd. in Edmonton, Alberta. It was originally a subsidiary of Shawcor, JR's father's firm, but the business was split from Shawcor in the 1970s. The company changed its name to Shaw Cablesystems Ltd. (after founder and chairman JR Shaw) and went public on the TSX in 1983. The company grew during the 1980s and 1990s through acquisitions of firms including Classicomm in the Toronto area, Access Communications in Nova Scotia, Fundy Cable in New Brunswick, Trillium Cable in Ontario, Telecable in Saskatchewan, Greater Winnipeg Cablevision (serving areas east of the Red River), and Videon Cablesystems of Winnipeg (serving areas west of the Red River), which, back in 1998, had itself previously acquired Vidéotron's assets in Alberta. However, two swaps, in 1994 and 2001, with Rogers Cable have resulted in its assets being restricted to Western Canada and a few areas of Northern Ontario. In 1999, Shaw spun out its media properties into a second publicly traded company, Corus Entertainment. In 2001 the Moffat family sold Videon Cablesystems to Shaw.

Prior to 2003, Shaw owned cable systems in the United States previously owned by Moffat Communications, serving six communities in Florida (Eastern Pasco County, Clermont, Palm Coast, Ormond Beach, West Palm Beach and Doral), and the Houston, Texas suburbs of Kingwood, Lake Conroe and Lake Livingston. In February 2003, the Florida systems would be sold to Time Warner Cable (with the West Palm Beach and Doral systems later sold to Comcast, and the other systems spun off to Bright House Networks), while the Texas systems were sold to Cequel III, as part of its then-Cebridge Connections subsidiary (now Suddenlink Communications).

In 2008, Shaw entered the AWS spectrum auction with the intention of possibly becoming a wireless phone provider. The auction ended July 2008, giving Shaw Communications enough spectrum to build a wireless network in its home provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. This spectrum ultimately went unused and was sold to Rogers Communications in January 2013.

In July 2009, Shaw announced its acquisition of Mountain Cablevision; in September, Rogers sued Shaw to block the sale, citing violations of a non-compete clause. However, the suit was quickly dismissed by the Ontario Superior Court. The purchase was approved by the CRTC on October 22, 2009. The acquisition was Shaw's first cable property east of Sault Ste. Marie since the 2001 swaps with Rogers and Cogeco. Shaw's re-entry into Southern Ontario would be short-lived, as its Hamilton system would be resold to Rogers in January 2013 as part of a deal which also saw unused wireless spectrum sold to the company, and saw Rogers sell its stake in specialty channel TVtropolis.

Return to broadcasting

On April 30, 2009, Shaw announced a deal to acquire three television stations — CHWI-TV in Windsor, Ontario, CKNX-TV in Wingham, Ontario and CKX-TV in Brandon, Manitoba — from CTVglobemedia. CTV had indicated that it would shut down the stations, all of which were incurring extensive financial losses, later in the year if a buyer could not be found, and had placed them on the market at a price of just $1 each. However, it was reported on June 30, 2009, that Shaw had backed out of the deal and was declining to complete the purchase. CHWI-TV would remain on the air as is; CKNX-TV would become a repeater of London station CFPL-TV in September 2009, while CKX-TV would close down entirely in October 2009.

In February 2010, Shaw announced an agreement with the financially troubled Canwest, whereby Shaw would buy an 80% voting interest, and 20% equity interest, in the restructured entity of Canwest, pending approvals from the CRTC and others. Three months later, following negotiations with rival bidders, the company said it would purchase the entirety of Canwest's broadcasting assets, including the interests in the CW Media subsidiary partially held by Goldman Sachs Alternatives. Canwest's newspapers were not part of the Shaw deal and were sold separately to Postmedia Network.

The acquisition was completed on October 27, 2010, after CRTC approval for the sale was announced on October 22, forming the Shaw Media division.

2012–2023

In June 2012, Shaw underwent a corporate re-branding developed by the Vancouver-based agency Rethink, introducing an updated logo and slogan ("You won't miss a thing"), along with a new promotional campaign featuring the animated characters Bit and Bud—robots who lived in a representation of Shaw's "pipe". The campaign drew comparisons to Bell Canada's former beaver characters of Frank and Gordon, which were overseen by Shaw's then-new chief marketing officer Jim Little while he was at Bell.