Rogers claims the telco failed to comply with its ad rules
By Ahmad Hathout
Telus is alleging Rogers is refusing to allow the telco to advertise on the cable company’s valuable media properties in a move it says is harming its ability to compete.
The Part 1 application – dated June 9 but only made public on the CRTC website Tuesday – claims the issues started with Rogers refusing “on extremely short notice” to run two Telus ad campaigns on Rogers’s radio stations in November 2024, despite over 30 years of ad inventory purchases. Those cancellations have allegedly “grown into a blanket refusal to accept any TELUS, Koodo, and Public Mobile advertising campaigns (“TELUS Group Ads”) on any of Rogers’ media platforms.”
The first of the two initial campaigns involved the promotion of its Buy One Give One initiative wherein it would give a free phone and plan to a Canadian in need for every new device purchased on Black Friday. The campaign was intended to run between November 12 and December 1 in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
The other campaign, which was to run between November 19 and December 2, was designed to “drive awareness” of its high-speed internet holiday offer in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.
“Rogers did not provide any reason for the refusal of the campaigns,” Telus alleges in the application, which called the refusals “particularly brazen” because “last-minute cancellations” of ad buys are “rare” due to the limited premium ad slots available on short notice.
“Rogers’ cancellations ultimately reduced the reach of TELUS’ campaigns and therefore undermined their effectiveness,” Telus claims, adding it also allegedly afforded Rogers exclusive advertising leading up to Black Friday on all its radio stations.
But Rogers, whose premium platforms Telus views as critical to its competitive success, says there was a reason for the cancellations.
“Telus has displayed a pattern of creating advertising that is inaccurate, misleading and clearly intended to negatively impact the Rogers brand, products and reputation, despite repeated requests to address these concerns,” a Rogers Sports and Media spokesperson alleged to us in a statement.
“This is contrary to Rogers Sports & Media’s advertising policies and content standards, which include the discretion to reject ads that are intended to defame the company or negatively impact the company’s brand,” the spokesperson added. “We are reviewing the application and will respond as part of the CRTC process.”
The Vancouver-based telco also alleges that Rogers is interfering with its ability to get sponsorship agreements with third parties by leveraging its relationship with the NHL – with which it just signed another broadcasting deal – and Alberta’s Spruce Meadows sports facility “to prevent the display of certain TELUS Group Ads during, respectively, Calgary Flames games and an equestrian event.”
Telus said it entered into a sponsorship agreement with the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation (CSEC) in 2005, which granted it ad rights to certain properties, including the Calgary Flames hockey team. But the telecom claims it was informed by CSEC in November 2024 that the NHL, citing “ambush marketing,” had “exercised a right” to reject its PureFibre campaign.
“It is clear that Rogers was behind the NHL’s actions,” Telus alleges, noting that there was no ambush marketing because Telus has been a long-time sponsor.
It was shortly after, Telus claims, that Rogers removed a Telus ad about PureFibre from its Calgary Flames broadcast on the grounds that the content was deemed damaging to the cable company.
“Rogers also informed TELUS that, in future, it would only accept TELUS Group Ads if Rogers approved of the creative, and Rogers recommended that the creative ‘avoid any competitive claims,’” Telus alleges.
“Rogers’ actions are part of its recent campaign to suppress competition from TELUS, which is one of Rogers’ principal competitors for the provision of wireless, Internet, and television services,” it continues to allege.
Telus claims this wasn’t a problem when the two weren’t competing on internet and broadcasting services nationally – that is, before Rogers purchased Telus’s western Canadian rival, Shaw, and before Telus started using the CRTC’s new wholesale internet framework, which allows it to lease capacity from competitors outside of its operating territory.
“As a result of Rogers’ acquisition of Shaw Communications Inc. (“Shaw”) and TELUS’ recent use of the Commission’s mandated wholesale wireline framework to expand aggressively into eastern Canada, TELUS and Rogers now compete for customers across nearly all telecommunications and broadcasting services almost everywhere in the country,” Telus said.
“In short, TELUS is now not just a customer of Rogers, but also Rogers’ strongest competitor nationwide,” it said.
“Due to the increased competitive threat posed by TELUS, Rogers is now willing to forgo advertising revenues from TELUS to protect its retail telecommunications and broadcasting business,” Telus claims. “Rogers’ advertising foreclosure has reduced Canadians’ awareness of a new and strong competitor. In turn, the lack of awareness has reduced consumer choice and price competition, allowing Rogers to maintain and expand its market power for its more profitable services.”
Telus claims if the CRTC doesn’t step in, Telus will “suffer harm,” Rogers will have “unchecked power to increase its dominance, leading to higher prices, to the detriment of Canadians,” and it will allegedly send a message to Bell, another vertically integrated operator, that this behaviour is acceptable.
The telco is asking the CRTC to find that Rogers is giving itself an undue preference and subjecting Telus to an undue disadvantage; make an order requiring Rogers to immediately grant Telus “commercially reasonable access” to its ad inventory and stop allegedly interfering with Telus’s sponsorship agreement with third parties; and wants the commission to amend both Rogers’s conditions of licence and the radio regulations to bake-in undue preference/disadvantage prohibitions and put the onus on the party doing the alleged disadvantaging to prove they aren’t doing the alleged disadvantaging.
Telus had asked the CRTC to rule on this matter by the end of July, before the back-to-school season begins in August, but that’s moot now.
The telco has taken a position of equal access and opportunity across the board. It said during a hearing about market dynamics between distributors and programmers three weeks after it filed this application that it wants equal access to negotiating access to content, which Rogers has plenty of, and access to the internet networks of its competitors, which it needs to fulfill that eastward expansion – even if that means making its own fibre infrastructure accessible to its competitors.
During the market dynamics hearing, Telus made a number of allegations about ad buys against Rogers that it formally laid out in this Part 1 application.
“If we can’t advertise, we’re at a highly significant disadvantage to sell any of our services,” Daniel Stern, Telus’s associate general counsel, told the commission during the hearing in June.
“It’s certainly damaging to our business.”
Screenshot courtesy of Rogers
