Vidéotron says Bell is undercutting BDUs by making it available on Alt TV
GATINEAU – Back in April 2019, Bell Media complained to the CRTC saying Vidéotron had relegated Bell’s premium French language service Super Écran deeper into its line-up in a way that Bell says disadvantages Super Écran to the benefit of Québecor’s Club illico, which means undue preference.
In its response, on June 3rd, Vidéotron explained rates Bell would be charging in the future for the channel would make its tiers unaffordable and, in any case, Super Écran and Club illico are totally different channels. Its filing ends by stating Bell, since September 2018, has been offering Super Écran for free on basic for its Alt TV subscribers and that because all 33 channels (including Super Écran) are being sold on that platform below wholesale rates, according to Vidéotron, that constitutes dumping and undue preference on Bell’s part.
Then on June 14, Québecor filed a complaint alleging undue preference on the part of Bell, since other BDUs, including Vidéotron, must pay wholesale fees, arguing Bell favours itself by offering Super Écran for free to its subscribers, while asking for increased wholesale rates from BDUs.
To clarify, Super Écran is a discretionary service that offers on an exclusive basis, movies and series from HBO, Showtime, Starz and Bell’s own Crave. Super Écran (as well as Club illico) is a hybrid video on demand service.
Also, Alt TV is an online TV platform accessible from a computer, a tablet or a television, where to become a subscriber, you must be a Bell broadband subscriber, too, noted Vidéotron.
Bell, in its most recent response states, on the dumping accusation, that Bell TV is remitting wholesale fees to Bell Media for the distribution of Super Écran on Alt TV. It can do that, they say, since to subscribe to Alt TV at a retail price of $14.95, the service is bundled with Fibe Internet, which, at a minimum, increases the retail price of combined services to approximately $100. (But in a later response, Bell says that you don’t need to be an Fibe Internet subscriber to access Alt TV.)
Finally, the rate increases mentioned by Vidéotron in its earlier filing are not finalized and are part of a larger negotiation (to 
which these disputes are a bit of a sideshow).
If you think this is confusing, so did Commission staff. So they fired off a letter on September 6, requesting information on a variety of subjects including the technical side: “Please provide a network diagram that shows how Alt TV works from the reception of the content (i.e. when the content is initially received for distribution by a network) to the delivery to residences of subscribers. If there are differences, please also provide separate network diagrams for cases where your service is accessed from outside subscriber homes,” reads that letter.
Bell’s response states: “Alt TV is distributed in the same manner as traditional licensed terrestrial BDU services; it is not an over-the-top (OTT) television distributor. Traditional IPTV BDUs provide a set-top box (STB) for subscribers to access programming content in-home. Alt TV's access point is through an application that performs the same function. Content is delivered via a closed transmission pathway on a private managed network (i.e. entirely on our own terrestrial distribution network) and not through the public Internet.”
Furthermore, the CRTC asked, “…the Commission considered that ‘it would be contrary to the intent of the Policy [Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2015-96] for a larger service provider to take advantage of its competitive position to tie its TV services to the subscription of an additional service such as the Internet.’ Please explain how requiring a Fibe Internet subscription in order to subscribe to Alt TV, as Bell seems to be doing, is consistent with best practices established by the Commission in Decision 2016-458.”
To which Bell responded that you do not need to be a Fibe Internet subscriber to be an Alt TV customer (which is confirmed on the Alt TV FAQ page). This is a change from its 2017 launch when Bell said Alt TV customers had to also be Bell broadband subscribers.
A lot of the record has been filed in confidence and hopefully the information available to the Commission is enough to render a decision but from the outside, the true nature of Alt TV appear difficult for the Commission and others to define within the regulatory framework.
It is useful to note the English equivalent of Super Écran, Crave, is also sold the same way on Alt TV and while we could see a complaint emanating from a BDU in the English market, they may well be negotiating the renewal of their agreements differently than Quebecor’s Vidéotron.
Finally, even though the Request for information sent by the Commission was requesting information on both complaints, CRTC spokesperson Patricia Valladao, in an email stated that “It is always possible that we treat applications together, and as you know they’re ongoing proceedings, so we don’t usually comment on how they will be treated.”
