GATINEAU – Barring a last-minute agreement, Torstar and Rogers Communications will ask the CRTC to finally settle the dispute between the two companies over the carriage of Torstar shopping channel ShopTV.
Earlier this year, Torstar applied for dispute resolution under Section 12 of the BDU Regulations, claiming Rogers was refusing to come to a fair agreement over the carriage of ShopTV by Rogers Cable.
Because Rogers owns The Shopping Channel (TSC) and offers it system-wide, Torstar says it has to be carried across all Rogers Cable systems due to the Commission’s 1:1 regulation which says for each BDU-owned channel carried, there must be an unaffiliated channel also offered.
Torstar says because of that, ShopTV should be offered in the Rogers Cable territories it is not carried (such as Guelph, Ottawa and London, Ont., as well as all of New Brunswick and in St. John’s Nfld.) and not just the legacy Toronto area systems the channel has been available for a number of years.
Rogers says it is on-side already with the 1:1 requirement in its other systems and it doesn’t have to add ShopTV.
Torstar also objects to the rate of $0.162 per subscriber per month Rogers is asking it to pay for continued access to the systems it is already carried on. It wants to pay Rogers just $0.08 per sub per month.
The Commission will hear lawyers and executives from both sides today beginning at 9 a.m. at the CRTC headquarters. You can drop in on the CRTC’s web site for the audio of that proceeding here.
