as tsx v sjr.a voting tsx sjr.b non voting nyse sjr non voting industry telecommunications mass media founded 1966 in edmonton alberta canada headquarters calgary alberta canada key people jr shaw executive chairman jim shaw vice chairman bradley s. shaw ceo jay mehr president 1 alek krstajic president wind mobile 2 products cable television high speed internet telephone direct broadcast satellite network and specialty broadcasting logistics tracking radio revenue cad 3.578 billion 2006 1 operating income cad 2.220 billion 2013 1 net income cad 784 million 2013 1 number of employees 14 000 2014 3 divisions shaw broadcast services shaw direct subsidiaries viawest wind mobile website www.shaw.ca shaw communications logo used from 1993 to 1997 shaw communications logo used from 1997 to 2012 shaw communications inc. is a canadian telecommunications company that provides telephone internet mobile and television services as well as mass media related services all backed by a fibre optic network . headquartered in calgary alberta shaw provides services mostly in british columbia and alberta with smaller systems in saskatchewan manitoba and northern ontario . through its subsidiary wind mobile shaw provides mobile services in urban areas of british columbia alberta and southern ontario . contents 1 history 1.1 expansion to broadcasting 1.2 2012 present 1.2.1 acquisition of wind mobile 1.2.2 divestment of media assets 2 other activities 3 controversy 3.1 internet usage based billing 3.2 complaints 4 eponymous buildings 4.1 gallery 5 see also 6 notes 7 external links history edit shaw was founded as capital cable television company ltd. in edmonton alberta in 1966 . 5 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 6 serving areas east of the red river and videon cablesystems of winnipeg serving areas west of the red river which had itself previously acquired vid otron 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 . 7 in 1999 shaw spun out its media properties into a second publicly traded company corus entertainment . 8 9 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 . 10 11 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 . 12 this spectrum ultimately went unused and was sold to rogers communications in january 2013 . 13 in july 2009 shaw announced its acquisition of mountain cablevision 14 in hamilton ontario ending a ten year old non competition agreement 15 with rival rogers cable . the purchase was approved by the crtc on october 22 2009 . 16 17 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 . 13 expansion to broadcasting edit 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 . 18 however it was reported on june 30 2009 that shaw has backed out of the deal and is declining to complete the purchase . 19 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 . 20 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 capital partners . 21 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 . 22 shaw headquarters in calgary 2012 present edit in november 2012 shaw underwent a corporate re branding introducing an updated logo and slogan along with a new promotional campaign featuring animated robots with particular focus on two bit and bud that live in a representation of shaw s infrastructure depicting them as being responsible for how their services work . the campaign was designed by the vancouver based agency rethink who were also responsible for bell canada s beaver characters frank and gordon . 23 24 in april 2013 shaw business solutions took over enmax s envision subsidiary which had built a fiber optic network throughout calgary . the acquisition was shaw communications logo used 2012 to current . completed for 225 million . 25 in 2014 shaw partnered with rogers communications to launch shomi a subscription video on demand service . 26 in february 2015 shaw communications announced that they would close operations for service call centers in edmonton calgary and kelowna and consolidate operations in victoria vancouver winnipeg and montreal . 1 600 of shaw s 14 000 employees were affected by the consolidation and cuts . 27 the company offered affected employees the option to relocate to its centralized offices apply for a new job at their location or leave the company with a severance package for former employees unable to relocate . 27 28 in 2013 shaw attempted to begin developing an iptv based platform for its television services . however after experiencing issues developing the platform shaw took a 55 million write down in june 2015 and announced that it was licensing and trialing comcast s cloud based x1 architecture . 29 30 in january 2016 as the first stage of the platform s implementation shaw launched its mobile television app freerange tv which allows shaw subscribers to stream selected tv channels and on demand content . the freerange tv app utilizes comcast s existing x1 infrastructure . 31 32 acquisition of wind mobile edit see also wind mobile 2016 acquisition by shaw network upgrades on december 16 2015 shaw announced its proposed acquisition of independent wireless provider wind mobile from its investors in a deal worth approximately 1.6 billion . 33 the transaction closed on march 1 2016 . 34 divestment of media assets edit shaw announced on january 13 2016 that it would sell shaw media to corus entertainment a company also controlled by the shaw family for 2.65 billion . 35 the acquisition was completed on april 1 2016 ; it was funded with 1.85 billion in cash and 71 364 853 class b non voting shares of corus . 36 the sale of shaw media did not include its 50 % stake in the shomi streaming service which remains owned by shaw communications . 35 the sale has also been linked to the purchase of wind mobile with the money earned with the sale of shaw media to corus entertainment being used to pay for the purchase of wind mobile other activities edit shaw is the parent of shaw broadcast services previously shaw satellite services canadian satellite communications or cancom and through shaw broadcast services 37 shaw direct one of canada s two national direct broadcast satellite providers . for many years it also owned a number of radio stations and specialty television services ; these assets were later spun off into corus entertainment in an effort to satisfy a now repealed crtc policy discouraging cross ownership of cablesystems and specialty services . controversy edit internet usage based billing edit in december 2010 shaw filed complaints with the crtc to have competing internet video services such as netflix classified as broadcasters under canadian law . 38 in the same month shaw introduced usage based billing on internet plans and lowered plan caps an average of 25 % while introducing overage fees of 1 to 2 per gigabyte . 39 on february 8 2011 shaw agreed to put a hold on usage based billing for its services and to this date continues to not charge customers any overages for surpassing internet data caps . 40 complaints edit customer service complaints are frequent among canadian cable mobile and internet users and shaw ranked second to last for customer satisfaction among five cable tv providers in western canada in a 2013 survey by j.d. power and associates . it ranked last for internet providers . 27 eponymous buildings edit shaw court downtown calgary head office shaw barlow calgary shaw centre saskatoon shaw centre ottawa shaw park winnipeg shaw conference centre edmonton shaw court calgary shaw tower vancouver shaw ocean discovery centre not for profit cultural and learning centre sponsored by shaw communications sidney bc gallery edit shaw communications barlow office and call centre in calgary shaw conference centre edmonton shaw technician van with the previous logo see also edit companies portal burning log tv program canwest classicomm cybertip.ca list of assets owned by shaw communications media ownership in canada shaw tv telecom notes edit a b c d shaw senior leadership . shaw communications inc. retrieved march 10 2016 . shaw closes wind acquisition . shaw newsroom . retrieved march 2 2016 . 2014 annual report pdf . shaw communications inc. retrieved october 10 2015 . company profile for shaw communications inc sjr . retrieved 2008 10 09 . shaw history . shaw communications inc. 2008 09 03 . retrieved 2014 11 16 . shaw cablesystems receives approval from crtc to purchase greater winnipeg cablevision . canadian radio and telecommunications commission . 1992 12 23 . retrieved 2011 02 10 . milestones . shaw.ca . retrieved 2011 03 10 . canuck players plan splitting up of wic . variety . retrieved 12 march 2016 . corus lines up behind canuck shaw s assets . variety . retrieved 12 march 2016 . pasco time warner to expand with shaw purchase . retrieved 8 july 2015 . cequel iii to buy shaw s texas systems . ced . retrieved 8 july 2015 . post financial 2008 06 23 . wireless spectrum auction . canada.com . retrieved 2011 03 10 . a b shaw hangs up on its cellular plans . the globe and mail . january 14 2013 . retrieved 13 january 2016 . shaw communications page not found shaw.ca pdf . retrieved 8 july 2015 . theresa tedesco and jamie sturgeon oct 24 2009 . cable rivals drop gloves . financial post . shaw communications press release shaw closes mountain cablevision transaction pdf . october 22 2009 .