By Denis Carmel
MONTREAL – Since January 2019, Bell Media has been offering a “one-day subscription” to its TSN and RDS services on their website, allowing viewers to therefore bypass buying a Videotron cable package (even if they are already a Videotron internet subscriber) for a day, for $5, perhaps as a test drive, or to see one particular big game.
Videotron claimed in a court filing this is a breach of its contract with Bell and further claimed this type of offering could jeopardize the Canadian broadcasting system by content producers offering their services over-the-top.
In a decision last week, the Quebec court decided the question of whether the “one day subscription” offering is undue preference or creates an imbalance in the market is something for the CRTC to answer.
The Court also mentioned a Ontario Superior Court ruling , (Mahar v. Rogers), which said: “Assumption of jurisdiction by this court would not only evade the CRTC, it would also remove the case from the authority of the Federal Court of Appeal which is mandated to review the CRTC. The net result would be to disrupt the scheme envisaged by Parliament for the interpretation of the regulations, a scheme which includes scrutiny by a court exercising jurisdiction akin to that of a superior court.”
Cartt.ca was not able to find out whether this issue was raised with the CRTC.
An appeal of this ruling, should it happen, would be in front of the Québec’s Court of Appeal.
