MONTREAL – Bell Media and Quebecor Media appear to have buried the hatchet over carriage of Sun News.
After heated negotiations between the two media behemoths earlier this year, the companies confirmed Tuesday that Bell has agreed to carry Quebecor-owned channels TVA Sports, Sun News, Yoopa and Mlle starting December 15. In return, Quebecor’s cable arm Videotron has agreed to offer Bell Media’s newest sports channel RDS2 starting Wednesday.
“With this new agreement, all TVA Group channels – including TVA Sports and Sun News – will be available to Bell customers,” said TVA Group president and CEO Pierre Dion, in the announcement. “There’s no doubt that this important announcement makes viewers the big winners. From our perspective, the agreement represents a major stepping stone for our speciality channels, as well as a powerful incentive to continue offering evermore innovative and original television to our viewers.”
Sun News will be added to Bell’s basic package for distribution to all of its subscribers outside of Quebec. Yoopa will be available on channel 188 (SD) on Bell Satellite TV and on channels 150 (SD) and 1150 (HD) on Bell Fibe TV, while Mlle will be available on channel 194 (SD) on Bell Satellite TV and on channels 194 (SD) and 1194 (HD) on Bell Fibe TV. Both services will be available on free preview for three months.
TVA Sports will be available on channels 193 (SD) and 1883 (HD) on Bell Satellite TV, and on channels 193 (SD) and 1193 (HD) on Bell Fibe TV. Its free preview period will conclude on December 31, 2011.
RDS2 will be available on Videotron starting November 23 on channels 161 (SD) and 761 (HD) as part of several pre-assembled packages and all custom packages. Videotron will also add RDS, RDS2, TSN and TSN2 to its illico mobile platform.
