OTTAWA – Bell’s decision to repackage Canadian specialty channel The Cave while continuing to distribute its own like-minded service and a comparable foreign service smacks of undue preference and disadvantage, the CRTC ruled Friday.
The Cave (formerly known as Men TV) is a category 1 specialty service controlled by Quebecor’s TVA Group and licensed to Shaw Television. Quebecor filed a complaint with the Commission last December over Bell’s decision to repackage it from the ‘Lifestyle 2’ package, where it had been for the past eight years, to the ‘Variety 3’ package, alleging an undue disadvantage and an undue preference for Fashion Television Channel (then owned and controlled by CTVglobemedia) as well as on the U.S. service Spike TV. Those services were distributed in Bell’s ‘Lifestyle 2’ and ‘Lifestyle 1’ packages, respectively.
The Commission agreed that there existed “clear evidence” that the repackaging would have a material adverse impact on The Cave. It also determined that Bell did not file sufficient evidence proving that the repackaging would have been justifiable, as required by the reversal of onus provision in section 9(2) of the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations.
“Based on the limited evidence available to it, the Commission was not able to conclude that the repackaging would have been justifiable in terms of certain broadcasting policy objectives set out in the Act, including in particular the provision of “reasonable” packaging terms, the granting of priority to Canadian programming services and affordability to consumers”, the Commission’s decision reads. “Since the onus is on Bell to demonstrate that its actions were not undue, in the absence of such a demonstration the Commission must make a finding of undue preference and disadvantage.”
