Denial of U.S. sports service sparks calls from Commissioner's for genre protection review

By Lesley Hunter

OTTAWA – The CRTC declined to add an American sports channel to its list of eligible services on Tuesday citing genre protection, a decision that prompted dissenting opinions from two of its commissioners who said that the policy is past its prime. Rogers Communications asked the Commission to add Fox Cable Networks-owned Fuel TV to the digital lists last June. In its application, it described the channel as “an English-language programming service that offers a range of action sports programming portraying the lifestyle and culture of non-mainstream action sports and the underlying social relationships and communities of interest of the...