Astral Media

Astral Media

by

Olivia Siepen N.260338627

Corporate CommunicationCPRL 226-751

15FEB

Cover page

How do you convey an image consistent with your vision when you own 82 radio stations, 20 TV stations, outdoor advertising platforms, and manage about a 100 websites?

Several hours were spent surveying Astral Media’s website along with extensive research on private library databases just to answer that question. And yet, the answer only came in conversation with Hugues Mousseau, the Senior Advisor of Internal and Corporate Communications at Astral Media.

The objective of Astral is to offer the best media platform to its publics. From this point, no hold are barred in satisfying the different target audiences. Astral Media strongly believes in these five core values: performance, passion, one team, imagination and integrity.

No wonder then that the corporation is not Canada’s leading media company by blind chance.We are going to explore the tools that a company of such calibre uses to communicate with its stakeholders.

The best should only be compared to the best; this presentation will close with a quick overview of Lagradere Group, an European-based company also specializing in Media.

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Summary executive

Astral Media is a leading Canadian media company, reaching people through a combination of highly targeted media properties in television, radio, outdoor advertising, and interactive media.

The Company is the country’s largest broadcaster of English- and French-language pay and specialty television services and operates, on its own or with partners, 20 television services, including The Movie Network/HBO Canada, Super Écran, Family, Canal Vie, Canal D, VRAK.TV and TELETOON.

Astral Media is also Canada’s largest radio broadcaster with 82 licensed radio stations in 8 provinces, including NRJ, RockDétente, Virgin Radio, EZ Rock and The Bear.

Astral Media Outdoor is one of Canada’s most dynamic and innovative outdoor advertising companies with nearly 8000 faces located in the largest markets in Québec and Ontario.

The Company also operates over 100 websites with a high level of interactivity and a variety of different products and services online.

Overview

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Important dates

Management

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Management

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On January 14th, Astral Media Inc.has reported robust financial results for the quarter ended November 30, 2009.

The shares of Astral Media Inc. trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols ACM.A/ACM.B.

Claude Gagnon is the Chief Financial Officer of Astral Media. He is responsible for managing the financial risks of the corporation. M. Gagnon is also responsible for financial planning, record-keeping, as well as financial reporting to higher management.

His name appears on the press releases where the financial activity of the corporation is reported.

Financial oveview

TSX: ACM.A/ACM.B

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Astral’s 2009 annual report was built around its staff. Via www.astralmedia2009.com, viewers meet with different staffers explaining their role in the organization.

Corporate Communications Hugues Mousseu explains that the annual report is the number 1 source of communication with stakeholders.

Astral Media believes its employees deserved to be given the place of honor in this report. Despite the softening demand in the advertizing market, Astral was able to continue in growth, thanks to the devotion of its workforce.

The personnel consists of 28000 employees of 7 business units from across 45 cities. 95% of the employees have access to a computer.

The organization has implemented two communication tools to keep in touch with their employees.

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Intranet

AstralNet is an interactive Intranet portal for all Astral Media employees. It is updated daily. It offers several productivity tools in an entertaining and fun virtual environement. AstralNet is available in two languages (French and English). The portal exists in 14 different versions. Weekly electronic newsletter

Employees can also read from the company via Astralite Xpress, a newsletter available online.

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Internal Communications

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In addition to AstralNet and Astralite Express, the company wants to meet face-to-face with its employees.

Here are the social advantages offered by the company:

- an insurance package- a retirement plan - stock-option purchase plan- specialized training programs linked with strategic plans for our business units- a salary that reflects equity and equal opportunity on the job.

As a plus, Astral allows its employees to watch movies with their children at their facilities.

Internal Communications

Annual General Meeting Every year, Ian Greenberg, the President and CEO, meets with all the employees. The meetings are held in Montreal and Toronto but they can also be viewed from other locations via a webcast.

During these meetings, employees are encouraged to share their opinion. Meetings allow for an assessment of the past year, create a forum to discuss and share the Company’s vision and priorities for the future, and represent an opportunity to respond to comments and concerns of employees.

Personal evaluationsEvery year, employees meet with their direct supervisor or with an HR staffer to review their performance. They are asked to explain how they embody Astral’s five core values: performance, passion, creativity, one team and integrity.

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On top of the internal communications tools, the company has also opened itself to social media.

Last year, Astral Media appointed a Director of Social Media that reports directly to the CEO. The Social Media strategy includes the use of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to connect with the public.

The interactions allowed by these platforms are not limited to those who work for the company. The general public can also take part in these conversations.

The last activity that we have observed on Astral's Twitter, was the sending of massive “thank you twits” to other users. The company had launched a fundraising campaign for Haiti and many users had spread the information from their personal profile. Astral took the time to thank all those who had relayed the information about “Lundi SOS Haiti”.We have also seen it as a little bit of Media Relations. Some of the “thank you” messages were addressed to other Media like le Journal de Montreal, le Journal de Québec and Canoe Info.

Social Media

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- List of current employees- Information about former employees- Names and positions of new hires- Recent promotions and changes- Popular profiles- Locations of all employees- LinkedIn profile of Affiliated companies (Teletoon...) and other Media- Links to Media articles about Astral Media

The kind of information you can find on the company's LinkedIn profile:

What can kind of interactions can you expect from Astral's Facebook Group?

- For new employees, it is the opportunity to introduce themselves- Other employees from different part of the country talk about their work- Prospective employees are seeking job opportunities- Upcoming artists make their music known by posting links to media players- Former employees talk about their current occupations- Satisfied customers show their appreciation for Astral Media

Social Media

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How to distinguish Astral from other brands? Except for its name, we have identified two of the elements that differentiate Astral from other companies.

Branding

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1. Logo: a symbol that provides consumers with instant and powerful brand recognition of Astral.

2. Sound and visual. The company has also made public various sound theme and videos that are also aired on TV.

Soft Rock Rock Kids

Image

We already aware of what the company wants us to know about them. But how do we really perceived it? This is on a personal note.

Customer Service This is what the reception of Astral looks like.On my first visit, the receptionist was very friendly. Every of the 100 times that I have called, I have always been answered politely.

SettingsThere are many screens in the lobby relaying the different channels owned by Astral Media. It shows that the company really believes in what they are doing and they are not ashamed to show it.

SoundThe jingle (from the previous slide) sounds very familiar.

Why did Astral chose blue as a “their” color?

Blue is appeasing but it is also very professional. All the companies that I have worked for use Blue (Sears, RBC and Bell).

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The reputation of Astral Media is managed by their Communications department.

While their communication system is centralized, specific issues can be discussed with designated persons of various business units.

For example, employees are reminded that there are designated spokespersons, as identified in Astral Media’s Disclosure Policy.

The spokespersons are responsible for communication with analysts, investors, media and other corporate contacts.

Astral Media employees are also expected to exercise discretion and judgement when engaging in activities or expressing opinions that could affect Astral Media's image or reputation.

Overall, the response to Astral Media's image is good. They benefit from positive news coverage.

Reputation

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Reputation

The strength of Astral Media resides in its ability to attract creative employees and a diverse audience.

Astral Media was founded by four brothers. It is evident that this family business is ran with the intention to entertain each family member. Children can watch Teletoon while the parents might prefer Serie Plus.

Having four different media under its belt allows the company to cater their services to different consumers markets.

This flexibility contributed in making them Canada's number 1 Media company.

Brand - Strength and Weaknesses

Does the company have any weaknesses?

Before starting this extensive research on the company, it would have been hard to talk about their corporate identity.

As mentioned in the introduction, it was a bit intimidating to work on a company that owns various media. Companies with similar sizes are often accused of having a diluted identity. Nevertheless, companies like P&G proves that the previous assertion is not always true.

As it was demonstrated throughout this presentation, the vision of Astral Media is to offer products and services that anyone can associate with. Therefore, the company can only be assessed on its ability to appeal to different publics. We have observed that while all parts of the company share the same values, the different services have also personalized their message in order to reach the groups that it represents. Slide

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Astral Media has provided a list of the kind of audience that each of their radio stations attract.

They also have various websites that are part of the iMedia service. These websites are associated with the other media that they own. Here, we are going to take a look at the websites based on their TV channels.

The Vrak TV website for instance is available in two different versions. It allows two different age groups (12 years and less and 13 and more) to access a content that is adapted to their maturity.

They also provide a break down of the different category into which their products fall.

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In 2005, Astral Media founded Médiasdiversité in collaboration with TVA. Médiasdiversité is an annual

event committed to reflecting and representing cultural diversity in Québec private media. Médiasdiversité is

intended as much for media industry decision-makers as for members of ethnocultural and Aboriginal

communities and persons with disabilities who are interested in media. It offers participants an ideal

opportunity to make contacts and extend their professional network.

Culture & Community

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Recently, Astral Media has raised over $800 000 for Haiti. But the corporation does also a lot locally.

For Astral Media, being responsible citizens also means making a contribution to Canadian culture and maintaining close ties with communities across Canada.

Hugues Mousseau, the Senior Advisor of Internal and Corporate Communications in Montreal explained that the corporation wants to help all citizens regardless of their origin.

Here are two of the concrete actions taken to promote diversity.

In partnership with the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, Astral Media launched a program

called Industry in the Classroom: Radio Broadcasting. The program will be rolled out to Aboriginal high

schools across. Astral Media will be investing $700,000 in this program over seven years (2007-2013).

The name of the game is to inspire dreams of careers in the radio industry.

We were curious to see how an European company operates in comparison with Canadian-based Astral media.

Lagardère Active is a global leader in the production and aggregation of multimedia content. Its world-class brands are structured around six business segments: magazine publishing, radio broadcasting, television broadcasting, audiovisual production, digital activities and

advertizing sales .

Lagardère’s values? Boldness, creativity and independence .

With more than 30,000 employees, Lagardère is an independent business corporation and the No. 1 magazine publisher worldwide, the world’s second-largest trade-book publisher for the general public and educational markets, as well as a top distributor of cultural and entertainment products and a major player in the audiovisual sector in France. The group is constantly seeking to attract new talent and relies on their enthusiasm, creativity and decisiveness to actively assert its potential for long-term growth.

Lagardère 2008 annual report

While Lagardere hasn’t dedicated their last annual report to their employees, they have featured some of them on their website. It allows us to meet with different staff members and get to know what their work consist of.The company’s strength and weaknesses are probably the same as Astral’s. They also offer a myriad of products and services catering to different target audiences.

Their desire to be transparent is evidenced by the amount of information available via their website.

Lagardere

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