By Ahmad Hathout
Bell Media has filed a complaint to the CRTC alleging Rogers wants to give itself an undue preference by replacing two of its newly rebranded channels with the cable company’s newly acquired programming — Discovery and Investigation Discovery (I.D.).
Bell previously had the rights to the Discovery and the I.D. brands, but lost them to Rogers when rights owner Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) signed a multi-year licensing deal with the cable giant this past summer. To make up for that, Bell announced in October that it acquired the rights to bring USA Network — to replace Discovery — and Oxygen True Crime — to replace I.D. — to Canada, with the aim to launch them on Rogers TV in the same channel slots come the new year.
But just prior to rebranding with USA Network and Oxygen programming, Bell alleges Rogers notified it about “initiating a channel realignment such that the Bell Services will be relegated to channel locations that are far removed from where they are currently located,” according to a partially redacted Part 1 complaint dated December 20 but only made public by the CRTC Wednesday.
Rogers intended to put its own Discovery and Investigation I.D. channels in those slots and move Bell’s channels “several hundred channels away from their current location” on December 30, according to Bell’s application, which would have been two days before some of the cable company’s newly acquired American programming rights came into effect.
“We’re focused on bringing the most watched lifestyle and entertainment content to Canadians, and that includes ensuring our customers can easily find the most popular content they want to watch,” Rogers said in a statement to Cartt about Bell’s application. “These proposed channel realignments would help ensure customers can find the brands and content they want on the channel numbers they expect, without unnecessary confusion. We are reviewing the application and will respond as part of the proceeding.”
Bell says in its application that it informed the CRTC on October 28 that it was now in a dispute with Rogers. The CRTC confirmed on November 6 that the standstill rule applies here, according to Bell’s application, requiring that the parties maintain the status quo until the issue is resolved by the parties or the regulator makes a decision on it.
As a result, no such channel reassignment has taken place; Bell is asking the CRTC to keep it that way. If not, Bell says it will suffer “significant financial harm” and the marketplace will see reduced choice.
“It seems clear that Rogers Sports and Media (RSM) intends to use the Bell Services’ current channel locations for the brand new Rogers Services in order to profit from the goodwill that Bell Media built up for those channels and expropriate the audiences Bell Media developed over decades,” the complaint says.
Bell is trying to establish to the CRTC that its newly branded services are similar to Rogers’s Discovery and Investigation I.D., thus proving a key link that establishes “preference” according to the CRTC – that is, the dissimilar treatment of comparable entities.
“Given that [Rogers] has acquired the Warner Bros. content and brands that Bell Media previously licensed, and that the Rogers Services will operate in the comparable genres as USA Network and Oxygen True Crime, this is another indication of the services being comparable entities,” Bell argues in its application.
“With respect to the programming offered, USA Network will continue to carry some of the key content that was being aired prior to the rebrand,” Bell notes. “This includes the very popular Highway Thru Hell (now in its 13th season) as well as Heavy Rescue: 401 and Mayday. New and upcoming reality content on USA Network will include: Rocky Mountain Wreckers; Race to Survive Alaska; The Anonymous; and The Traitors. RCCI’s Discovery Channel will be offering similar reality content such as: Homestead Rescue; Expedition X; Moonshiners: Master Distiller; and Hustlers Gamblers Crooks.
“As regards Oxygen True Crime, it will continue to carry some of the key content that was being aired prior to the rebrand,” Bell adds. “This includes Forensic Factor: A New Era and Fear Thy Neighbor. New and upcoming content on Oxygen True Crime will include: Texas Cheerleader Murder Plot; New York Homicide; and Prosecuting Evil With Kelly Siegler. RCCI’s ID Channel will be offering similar content such as: Signs of a Psychopath; Very Scary People; and Evil Lives Here.
“The Bell Services will continue to be highly relevant to subscribers, particularly given that they will air the same genre of programming as they do currently, carry the same popular Canadian programming and same U.S. programming licensed from other studios – both of which drive consumption and therefore continuity for viewers – as well as new foreign programming, all of which we have invested substantially in,” it continued.
While Bell says it understands that channel placement issues should be a private party matter, “the current circumstances area also unique in this regard, as the sole reason for the change in channel alignment is to expropriate Bell Media’s audiences for the benefit of [Rogers’s] related services,” it alleges.
Bell’s complaint comes after Rogers filed an application to the Federal Court of Appeal last month challenging a confidential CRTC decision in November that requires Rogers to continue carrying certain Corus channels it wants to shuffle out and to maintain the channels’ numbers on Rogers cable.
In that case, Rogers says it wants to bump Corus’s “Slice,” “Flavour,” and “Home” channels from their existing channel slots in part because they don’t have the key American programming rights that it acquired in the summer. Similar to its position in the Bell case, Rogers says it wants to replace Flavour and Home – formerly Food Network Canada and HGTV Canada, respectively – with its own Food Network and HGTV channels so that its customers are not confused about where to find that programming.
Like Bell’s position, Corus argues that its newly branded channels contain very similar programming to Rogers’s services, and allowing the cable company to push its channels many slots down the dial will ensure that its customers won’t see them, thus starving it of much-needed eyeballs. Rogers has argued that this reasoning doesn’t really apply in the modern world because there are now convenient ways for companies to communicate service changes to subscribers and new ways for customers to seek out channels, including by using Rogers’s voice-activated search capabilities on its remote control.
Before these latest developments, Rogers obtained a ruling from an Ontario Superior Court judge in early November that stated it has the right to repackage Corus’s channels per the terms of their carriage agreements, but didn’t wade into the CRTC’s standstill authority, whose oversight domain is with the Federal Court.
