BCE loses to Québecor in Federal Court of Appeal on issue of sports channel carriage

By Denis Carmel OTTAWA – In the latest development in the list of never-ending disputes between Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) and Québecor concerning their respective sports channels, the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) denied BCE a judicial review of a CRTC decision that found Bell was giving RDS, its French-language sports channel, undue preference. Both Bell and Québecor own programming services as well as distribution ones, which has them competing on many fronts. In a 2018 decision, the Commission sided in final offer arbitration (FOA) with BCE’s rates for the distribution of Québecor’s sports service TVA Sports on BCE distribution...