By Ahmad Hathout
Rogers says it cannot be expected to continue negotiations to carry OneSoccer because it believes the service was controlled by a non-Canadian at the time the purported owner, Timeless Inc., filed a complaint with the CRTC alleging the cable giant gave itself an undue preference by refusing to broadcast its programming.
Over a year after the CRTC ruled that Rogers must negotiate with Timeless on OneSoccer’s carriage, the broadcaster has filed a Part 1 application made public Friday alleging the CRTC didn’t have the authority to make that ruling because the soccer service was controlled by a non-Canadian at the time the original application was filed – and that owner was not called Timeless, it alleges.
Rogers alleges the network was actually owned at the time of the filing by Mediapro Canada, “which Commission staff have confirmed is a non-Canadian company,” Rogers said in Friday’s application, citing a June 2024 commission letter to Rogers and Timeless.
Per commission rules, the CRTC can only adjudicate carriage disputes if both entities either have an operating licence or have exempt status. But to get those designations in the first place, the entities must be controlled by Canadians.
Less than a month after the CRTC made its decision, Rogers said it asked the regulator in an April letter to decide the matter of OneSoccer’s ownership and control.
“Instead, Commission staff sent a letter to Rogers and Timeless on June 28, 2024, which stated that Commission staff (not the Commission) is satisfied that OneSoccer is presently owned and controlled by Canadians, and did not make any determinations regarding the critical question of whether OneSoccer was controlled in fact by a Canadian when Timeless filed its Complaint and when the Commission” issued its decision, Rogers says in its Part 1.
Rogers is asking the commission to undergo a public review of the ownership of OneSoccer as of the date of Timeless’s Part 1 application and as of the date of the CRTC’s decision in March 2023 finding Rogers gave itself an undue preference by not carrying the soccer network.
“Until a Commission decision on this Application is rendered to address these matters, Rogers cannot be expected to resume negotiations with OneSoccer, as this requirement is based on a decision that – absent evidence to the contrary – the Commission lacked the legal authority to make,” Rogers says in its application, adding Timeless has, in any event, offered Rogers a carriage rate that is “grossly inflated and totally unrelated to the value of the service.” (Rogers initially said it did not want to carry OneSoccer because it had limited appeal to viewers.)
Rogers said it made the discovery with the release of a Mediapro press release on December 20, 2022, in which the company states that it operates OneSoccer and that Mediapro is the Canadian subsidiary of Spain’s GRUP Mediapro.
It said further evidence of Mediapro’s control was seen when the Canadian subsidiary of the Barcelona-based company settled a legal battle in Ontario Superior Court with Canadian Soccer Business (CSB) in June 2024, citing a Canadian Press article. That settlement saw Mediapro transfer all “OneSoccer online service, intellectual property, and all associated rights” to Timeless, which is owned by the chairman of the Canadian Premier League and the CSB.
Rogers said it wasn’t clear if the CRTC took that development into consideration when it ruled that OneSoccer was owned by Canadians.
After Rogers asked the CRTC to investigate OneSoccer’s ownership on April 11 — the deadline ordered by the CRTC to comment on how to resolve the impasse — it said Timeless produced two new agreements with Mediapro, which Rogers alleges “appears to have occurred following Rogers’s April 11 letter.”
But these agreements, Rogers alleges, “strongly suggested that OneSoccer only came into compliance with the Direction after” the CRTC’s undue preference decision.
What’s more, Rogers alleges there was a lack of transparency with how the commission staff conducted its investigation that informed its decision. The staff, Rogers goes on, “did not disclose any information necessary to assess the conclusion that OneSoccer is presently owned and controlled by Canadians,” such as the reasons for its belief that the network owner was in compliance and the process by which it made that decision.
Rogers is, therefore, also asking the CRTC to disclose the information it has on file as to OneSoccer’s ownership and control.
Rogers alleges that – since the launch of OneSoccer in Canada to and including the time of its undue preference complaint – “Timeless had almost no ability to influence or control programming decisions relating to OneSoccer, and no ability or authority to make any final decisions regarding programming selections,” citing term sheets.
The term sheets, according to Rogers, showed Timeless was “merely acting as a Canadian distributor” which had the exclusive right to distribute and sublicense to any broadcaster the right to distribute the network through various means of distribution.
Mediapro, on the other hand, had control over various aspects of the operation, primarily the supply of the programming, Rogers alleges.
Screenshot taken from OneSoccer website
