OTTAWA – The CRTC has pulled the chair from “The Entertainment Desk” in denying Rogers Communications bid to launch a Category B entertainment news channel. The ruling comes even though the Commission received no interventions, not even from E! the closest potential competitor owned by BCE.
Rogers applied for a broadcasting licence to operate a national, English-language niche specialty Category B service that would be devoted to entertainment news and the entertainment industry back in February.
In its submission, Rogers contended that its proposed channel would not directly compete with E! since that service covers “all aspects of the entertainment industry.” It qualified “The Entertainment Desk” as “primarily a niche news service focused on the entertainment industry.”
“E’s programming consists of some entertainment news but mostly reality television series, documentaries and movies and, therefore, its programming is broader in scope. Given the niche orientation of our proposed service we do not believe it would be directly competitive with E!” writes Rogers in their application.
The Commission was not in agreement and ruled that Roger’s proposed channel was not “sufficiently focused on a niche market and that it is not sufficiently distinct to differentiate it from the Category A service E!”
It further noted that Rogers “Did not propose alternative safeguards to ensure that the service not be directly competitive with E! The Commission also notes that RBL requested authorization to broadcast from all categories without sufficient limitations to prevent the service from changing its programming emphasis in the future.”
