TORONTO – Rogers Media today cleared the final hurdle in its bid to acquire Score Media after receiving regulatory approval from the CRTC.
With today’s approval, Rogers Media can now start to integrate and rebrand the channel, which has been in trust since October 19, 2012, under the Sportsnet umbrella. Rogers’ acquisition of Score Media cost $167 million, and includes The Score, Canada’s third largest specialty sports channel with 6.6 million television subscribers, closed captioning service Voice to Visual Inc., and mixed martial arts program The Score Fighting Series. The rebranded channel will be unveiled on July 1.
As part of the transaction, Rogers Media’s parent company, Rogers Communications Inc., acquires an 11.8% equity interest in theScore Inc. (Score Digital).
In a statement, Rogers Media president, Keith Pelley, said, “The Score delivers niche sports news and information programming, complementing Rogers Media's robust multiplatform sports offerings and significant investment in sports content and experiences. Last year, we made the bold statement to make Sportsnet the #1 sports media brand in Canada, and together with The Score, we take another step forward in achieving this goal.”
The Commission also approved Rogers’ request to amend The Score's condition of licence, which included an increase in the amount of analysis and interpretation programming to 15% from 10%, and flexibility to break into live sports event programming every hour to present sports results and video highlights, instead of every 15 minutes.
The company’s tangible benefits package of $17.1 million (representing 10% of the value of the transaction) will be directed over a five-year period to create new programming opportunities for the independent production sector and help foster skills development in multimedia and/or digital media production.
The Score will continue to operate out of the station’s studio on King St. in Toronto’s downtown core, with support from the extended Sportsnet and Rogers Media family.
