Telus and Rogers have reached a distribution agreement for the latter’s new Food Network, HGTV, Discovery, Investigation Discovery, Bravo and Magnolia channels.
Telus announced Wednesday its Optik TV customers are now getting an exclusive free preview of Rogers’s premium lifestyle and entertainment channels until April 14.
Starting April 11, Optik TV customers will be able to add the individual channels to their existing plan for $5 each or choose from two theme packs: Food & Home for $10 per month, which includes Food Network, Magnolia Network and HGTV; or Discovery & Reality, also $10 per month, which includes Bravo, Discovery and Investigation Discovery (ID).
The Telus announcement comes as Rogers finds itself in a dispute with Bell over distribution, or lack thereof, of some of the channels. Rogers has accused Bell of refusing to carry its Discovery and ID channels, to which the cable giant gained the brand licensing and American programming rights last summer. Bell has disputed Rogers’s claim, saying it’s Rogers that is holding up negotiations on distribution terms for the channels. Currently, Bravo is the only one of Rogers’s new channels that Bell offers to its TV customers.
Rogers and Bell are locked in a larger dispute over channel placement for both the cableco’s new Discovery and ID channels and the telecom’s recently launched USA Network and Oxygen True Crime channels — which were Bell’s replacements for the Discovery and ID brands to which it lost the rights when Rogers scooped them up in its blockbuster deal with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Rogers is also fighting with Corus over channel placement, with the former’s new Food Network and HGTV channels and the latter’s Flavour and Home networks at the centre of that dispute. Earlier this week, the Federal Court of Appeal granted Rogers its request to appeal two CRTC decisions that prevented Rogers from moving Corus’s channels from their current positions on Rogers TV.
