MONTREAL – Cogeco Cable urged the CRTC to keep close watch over the potential merger between Bell and CTV in order to “preserve competition and protect consumer interests”.
Appearing Wednesday morning at the hearing into the transaction in Gatineau, president and CEO Louis Audet stressed the importance of obtaining specific regulatory safeguards as soon as possible, and definitely before the upcoming vertical integration policy hearing in June, to “prevent abuse of the dominant position” that the new conglomerate would have if the transaction is approved.
"Ultimately, Canadian consumers risk footing the bill for concentration and vertical integration in the absence of greater oversight”, he said. “The new conglomerate could sharply increase fees for popular specialty channels, such as sports networks TSN and RDS. Consumer price inflation will be even higher unless the new conglomerate foregoes collecting new fees for carriage of its conventional television channels which are available free on the air."
