CSR owner says IPO 'imminent' by Richard Bloom

The owner of Canadian Satellite Radio Inc. -- fresh from winning his bid to offer Canadians subscription radio services -- says he expects to take his company public, perhaps as early as this year.

"We could almost ask all of the bankers and brokers to take a number at the door on proposals," John Bitove Jr., the chairman, chief executive officer and owner of CSR, told reporters at a media briefing yesterday on his company's winning proposal and the satellite radio industry.

In what has been described as a landmark ruling, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission gave the green light Thursday to CSR, rival Sirius Canada Inc. and a third, joint bid from CHUM Ltd. and Astral Media Inc. to offer subscription-based radio. CSR and Sirius plan to operate in conjunction with existing U.S.-based satellite companies, while the CHUM-Astral group had proposed using land-based transmitters.

The satellite services could be up and running later this year, the companies said.

A source at CHUM said a decision will be made next week on whether the CHUM-Astral consortium will appeal the CRTC decision to the cabinet or the Federal Court. CHUM was disappointed by the decision to license the satellite services. It had proposed a service that would have met the same Canadian content rules as conventional radio, and had argued that it would not be able to launch its service if both satellite bids were approved.

CHUM and some cultural groups have argued the Canadian content obligations imposed on the satellite companies are less stringent.

A CHUM appeal would likely be filed separately from any appeal made by cultural groups, the source said.

There will be at least one appeal to the federal cabinet against the CRTC ruling. Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, a non-profit media watchdog group, said a half-dozen arts organizations have decided to challenge the decision.

Opponents have 45 days to decide whether to appeal, and "it's clear from the call that there will be maybe more than one appeal," said group spokesman Ian Morrison. He said he isn't at liberty to name the groups that might appeal the regulatory ruling, but the CRTC decision "creates a pipeline for U.S. radio programs direct to Canada, with little in return for our country."

Meanwhile, as part of its decision, the CRTC imposed a different set of restrictions on the two satellite-based providers. Among other things, CSR and Sirius Canada must produce at least eight original channels in Canada -- more than the five their U.S.-based partners XM and Sirius, which own the satellites and control the bulk of the programming, had anticipated.

In turn, Mr. Bitove said his company will be meeting with XM of Washington, D.C., to renegotiate the terms of its agreement. However, he was optimistic the talks will succeed and he hopes to have the service operating ahead of the Christmas shopping period.

In order to finance the launch of the service and develop the company, Mr. Bitove said he expects "an imminent" initial public offering as soon as it finalizes its agreement with XM.

CSR plans to offer its service for $12.99 a month and expects to have 40,000 subscribers in the first year, rising to 1.5 million by 2011."I personally have a belief that this industry is something that lots of Canadian investors would like to have a piece of. So, if we're licensed and we go public, there's a lot of people that can participate in the Canadian satellite radio industry," Mr. Bitove said. "This would be a very high growth stock . . . It's something the Canadian investment community would really like to get at because most of it has been income trusts for the last few years."

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