Rogers Communications confirmed Wednesday the multi-year deals it recently signed with NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) will see the cable company launch the Bravo channel here in Canada on Sept. 1 and channels for HGTV, Food Network, Magnolia, Discovery ID and Discovery starting Jan. 1, 2025.
“We’re delivering the best combination of linear channels and on-demand content from these coveted brands, building on Rogers investment to bring Canadians the best sports and entertainment in the way they want to watch it,” Colette Watson, president of Rogers Sports & Media, said in a press release.
Thanks to Rogers’s licensing agreement with NBCUniversal, Canadian viewers will be able to watch the Bravo channel through their TV service providers, on Citytv.com, and soon on Citytv+ through Amazon Prime Video Channels.
Starting this fall, Bravo will have new seasons of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City (season five premieres Sept. 18 at 9 p.m. ET/PT), The Real Housewives of New York City (season 15 debuts Oct. 1 at 9 p.m. ET/PT), The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, The Real Housewives of Potomac, Below Deck Sailing Yacht and Southern Charm. In addition, the channel will have returning seasons from Bravo’s biggest unscripted franchises, including The Real Housewives, Below Deck, Summer House, Southern Charm, Top Chef and Vanderpump Rules, the press release said.
Beginning Jan. 1, Rogers will launch TV channels for HGTV, Food Network, Magnolia, Discovery ID and Discovery, it said. In addition, content from Cooking, OWN, Motor Trend, Animal Planet and Discovery Science will be available on demand and via Citytv+ on Amazon Prime Video Channels, it added.
Corus Entertainment is the current content rights holder in Canada for Warner Bros. Discovery’s HGTV, Food Network, Magnolia Network, Cooking Channel, and Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), although it recently announced it was dropping the OWN channel Sept. 1. Corus’s licensing rights expire Dec. 31, 2024.
Bell Media is currently the licensing rights holder for WBD’s Discovery, Investigation Discovery (ID), Motor Trend (known as Discovery Velocity in Canada), Animal Planet and Discovery Science.
After Rogers’s June 10 announcement that it planned to launch the WBD suite of channels, Bell Media filed a legal challenge June 19 to prevent Rogers from launching the channels to which Bell currently holds the rights for two years, as per its two-year non-compete agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery — a non-compete covenant that Rogers says it was not aware of when it signed its multi-year licensing deal with WBD.
When contacted by Cartt via email Wednesday regarding Bell Media’s legal challenge against Rogers, a Rogers Sports & Media spokesperson responded to say: “Bell’s claims against Rogers are without merit and we will fight to make sure Canadians can continue watching the programs they know and love.”
Image borrowed from Rogers’s website
