OTTAWA-GATINEAU – In its application to purchase the five Citytv broadcast stations, Rogers Communications has told the CRTC it will voluntarily divest its two Christian OMNI stations in Winnipeg and Vancouver.
As readers will recall, Rogers emerged as the buyer for Citytv Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto after the Commission told CTVglobemedia that it could purchase CHUM Ltd., but not the five local TV stations.
Rogers’ two English language stations, although niche religious stations, do violate the Commission’s one-station-per-market policy, which is the reason why the regulator wouldn’t let CTV own the Citytvs. Rogers’ ethnic broadcasters, OMNI.1 and OMNI.2 in Toronto do not violate the policy because of the multilingual nature, says Rogers.
In the hearing notice released today by the Commission, it warned Rogers of some tough questions it can expect to hear on August 29th. "The Commission notes the current practice of OMNI.1 and OMNI.2 to use popular U.S. programming to fill certain portions of their program schedules, over the broadcast day and in primetime, and thus, the Commission may also wish to discuss the potential impact of the proposed transaction on the Commission’s common ownership policy despite Rogers’ assertion that its ethnic stations do not raise any issues in this regard," says the hearing notice release.
As well, "(t)he Commission may wish to discuss programming diversity and synergy issues that may result from this transaction, such as editorial independence between Rogers’ various media holdings and potential programming synergies amongst Rogers’ various television services," it said.
With a purchase price of $375 million, Rogers proposed $37.5 million in production benefits.
