Three Shaw Communications Inc. executives have stepped down from the board of directors of troubled telecommunications firm Group Telecom after the phone carrier announced it will not have enough sales to meet a debt contract.
Shaw CEO Jim Shaw, chief financial officer Ron Rogers and senior vice-president of planning Michael D’Avella resigned from the GT board last week amid concerns over the company’s ability to meet the covenants owed to its secured lending syndicate and vendor financiers.
GT has said if the revenue covenant is not met and relief from it is not obtained, it will have to “consider all of its alternatives.” “Shaw felt that it was prudent to give GT some flexibility in constituting its board with directors to deal specifically with the restructuring challenges facing GT. Shaw will be waiving its right to representation on GT’s board for the time being,” Jim Shaw said in a statement.
Shaw is a major shareholder of Group Telecom, a Toronto-based carrier that runs a national fibre-optic network.
Meanwhile, Shaw has announced the commercial deployment of its Video-On-Demand (VOD) service, beginning in Calgary this fall.
Shaw Internet customers who also have digital cable service will be able to access a broad range of programming content through their high-speed or lite-speed Internet connection and set-top box.
Customers will be able to select programming from a library of titles through an online ordering system and view the Hallmark Interactive programming – which includes more than 300 titles – on their television at a time of their choosing.
More content will be added over the coming months, and the VOD service will be rolled out across the rest of Western Canada over the next six to eight months.
“Video-on-demand is one of the most significant advances in television technology and we believe it will usher in a new era of interactive and customer-controlled television viewing,” said Shaw Communications president Peter Bissonnette.
