NFL "confident" that Feds will act "reasonably and responsibly"
TORONTO – Bell Media and the NFL filed their latest notices of appeal Wednesday, seeking once again to quash the CRTC’s controversial decision banning simultaneous substitution of the broadcast of the Super Bowl.
In a notice dated December 28, 2016, Bell Media asked the Federal Court of Appeal to set aside the CRTC’s distribution order that bans simultaneous substitution (simsub) for the event, starting with Super Bowl 51 on February 5, 2017.
Simsub occurs when a BDU temporarily replaces the signal of one TV channel with that of another channel showing the same program at the same time. The Commission has said that the simsub decision, part of its Let’s Talk TV process, came as a result of complaints made annually by Canadians unable able to see the American TV commercials during the broadcast, as well as over errors made during the simsub process.
Bell Media’s contract with the NFL for the game runs through the 2018-19 season and the company claims that the loss of simsub for the Super Bowl over the life of its remaining contract will cost it $80 million. The Court initially rejected the company’s appeal of the simsub decision, saying that it had to wait until the CRTC officially issued the order for the new policy. The Court last month agreed to hear Bell Media’s re-filed appeal.
"Today's submission is just the latest procedure in an ongoing legal process”, Bell Media said in a statement. “But there is a growing community of voices highlighting the negative impact of this decision on the Canadian creative and broadcasting industry. Unions, creative and business associations, political leaders on both sides of the border, and the NFL itself are all pressing for action before Super Bowl LI."
The NFL also filed its appeal Wednesday, asking that the CRTC’s order be set aside, that the Court issue an order declaring that the CRTC has no jurisdiction to prohibit the simultaneous substitution of the Super Bowl under Simultaneous Programming Service Deletion and Substitution Regulations, as well as award costs and “other relief” as advised by counsel.
"The National Football League has been actively challenging the CRTC’s simultaneous substitution decision through the proper legal and policy channels since the regulator made its initial ruling 18 months ago”, reads the statement by the NFL. “The CRTC’s legal maneuverings each step of the way have only served to delay this process in an apparent attempt to run out the clock and sidestep the challenge. While the NFL continues to preserve its legal rights and press its case in Canadian courts, the League remains confident that the Government of Canada will act reasonably and responsibly before the 2017 Super Bowl to address this arbitrary attempt by the CRTC to disadvantage not only the NFL, but Canadian broadcasters and the Canadian creative community as well."
Both Bell Media and the NFL have proposed that their appeals be heard in Toronto.
