Shaw Communications - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shaw was founded as Capital Cable Television Co. Ltd. in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1966.^[3] The company changed its name to Shaw Cablesystems Ltd. 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^[4] (serving areas east of the Red River), and Videon Cablesystems of Winnipeg (serving areas west of the Red River), which 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.^[5]
In July 2009, Shaw announced that they will be acquiring Mountain Cablevision^[6] in Hamilton, Ontario, ending a ten-year-old non-competition agreement^[7] with rival Rogers Cable. Approval of the purchase on October 22, 2009^[8] by the regulatory body CRTC has been granted, and it was stated to be in the public's interest.^[9] The acquisition was Shaw's first cable property east of Sault Ste. Marie since the 2001 swaps with Rogers and Cogeco.