Rogers says the complaint is ‘completely without merit’
By Ahmad Hathout
A national news channel is alleging Rogers is unjustly keeping it from distribution to a broader cable audience, but the cable giant is calling the complaint meritless.
The News Forum, which was granted mandatory distribution on cable in 2022, alleges that, unlike its competitors, it has been denied equal access by being excluded from Rogers’s legacy or grandfathered cable packages.
Before it received mandatory distribution under the Broadcasting Act’s 9.1(1)(h) rule, the independent news service negotiated its current distribution agreement with Rogers as an exempt undertaking the year before. But while it claims that other broadcasters changed the exempt status affiliation agreements to provide wider distribution of the service, Rogers has not done that.
The service appears to hinge its argument on a section of the 2013 ruling by the CRTC that addresses national news distribution. That decision says the elements of the distribution order in that decision, such as packaging and negotiation of rates, “will supersede the relevant clauses in existing affiliation agreements … Other clauses will remain as agreed upon by the parties.”
Therefore, the service wants the CRTC to find that Rogers has imposed undue disadvantages on it by “failing to replace the existing exempt service affiliation agreement with a new agreement that appropriately reflects The News Forum’s [must-offer] status;” that the acquisition of Shaw “necessitates immediate Commission intervention to ensure equitable distribution of The News Forum with CBC News Network and CTV News Channel, consistent with the practices of other BDUs;” and that the CRTC impose a new wholesale rate, applied retroactively, to match that equal distribution, which includes to all institutional, commercial and transient establishments, such as hotels, airports and hospitals.
“This application is completely without merit,” a Rogers spokesperson said in a statement. “It is nothing more than an attempt to override an existing contractual agreement. We will file a complete response as part of the Commission’s process.”
The service says this broader distribution will ensure it has the wholesale revenue and visibility to both meet its programming commitments and grow and balance out the perspectives seen on CBC and CTV with distinctive and diverse approaches that will enrich the lives of Canadians.
“With the growing number of international foreign language news services, and the leverage and priority given to US foreign driver services, such as CNN, FOX News Channel, MSNBC and CNBC, discoverability of Canadian news services becomes even more important,” the complaint says. “Foreign news services are provided with priority placement and greater discoverability accorded by BDU algorithms.”
News services are among the most expensive programs to produce. They have been targeted by legislation – the Online News Act – to receive money from big technology companies that host their content. Google has agreed to earmark an inflation-indexed $100 million annually to continue to do that.
Screenshot from The News Forum website
