OTTAWA – The CRTC has taken the unusual step of offering to step in to help resolve a carriage dispute between Rogers Sportsnet and the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA).
The CCSA asked for the Commission’s assistance on February 26, 2009 to help resolve the year-old commercial dispute through either final offer arbitration or an expedited hearing.
At issue is the distribution of Rogers Sportsnet (RSI), the national, English-language specialty channel focused on regional sports programming, by the CCSA’s 98 small- and medium-sized independent cable companies. The network is packaged and distributed across Canada on four distinct regional feeds, as well as via a national, high definition channel. Approximately 300,000 subscribers receive the channel through CCSA member companies.
The master affiliation agreement between CCSA and RSI expired on August 31, 2008 and negotiations to renew the contract have so far proved unsuccessful, according to CRTC documents. The CCSA has requested, among other things, that the Commission make a determination on “fair and equitable rates” for the distribution of RSI’s primary signal, its regional signals, its HD signal, and the wholesale rate to be paid for the distribution of the signals in Francophone markets, by its member companies.
Despite concern from RSI that the Commission’s decision to set a wholesale rate for its signals would undermine its ability to negotiate with other BDUs, the CRTC said that under the specific facts of this case, it feels that it is in the best interest of the broadcasting system for it “to intervene in the present dispute ….to the least extent possible with a view to resolving the impasse between the parties.”
Information deemed to be of a “commercially sensitive nature” will be kept confidential.
For more on the decision, click here.
