TMG CEO says deck is stacked against him
By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Telus has filed a complaint against Telelatino Media Group, accusing the ethnic broadcaster of undue preference, undue disadvantage and tied selling, in violation of the CRTC Wholesale Code. Telus is also asking for leniency from the Commission because it has been in non-compliance with BDU regulations because of this dispute.
In its regs, the CRTC says a distributor which carries a third-language, foreign-owned service must also carry, in the same tier, a Canadian service serving the same ethnic group as long as one is available. It’s known as the 1:1 rule.
In its complaint filed July 17 and posted on CRTC’s web site last week, Telus says it has been trying to come to an agreement to distribute Mediaset Italia, an Italian-language service owned in Canada by TMG, since February 2018.
And, while Telus was trying to secure a deal with Mediaset, it says in its complaint it learned Telelatino (TLN) was not itself an Italian-language service (the channel offers some programming, like Italy’s Serie A soccer and some specials in Italian, as well as some limited Spanish-language programming, but is now mostly an English-language service for the Italian and Spanish community in Canada). Since Telus says it was carrying TLN in order to carry RAI Italia, a non-Canadian Italian-language service, the BDU was offside of the 1:1 rule. There are no other Canadian-owned Italian language TV channels of which we are aware that are owned by a company other than TMG.
So, Telus wants to secure carriage of TMG’s Italian-language service Mediaset in order to ensure its compliance and since TLN can not satisfy the 1:1 rule, Telus decided to drop TLN, with the CRTC’s permission, in January 2020. As carriage negotiations were stalled, the Commission set aside the standstill rule with respect to TLN’s carriage by Telus, allowing it to drop the channel.
The facts at our disposal at the moment come from the heavily redacted Telus application, so full details of the dispute are not available. “TMG was not only attempting to tie acquisition of Mediaset to (redacted) it was also attempting to control how those services would be packaged by Telus,” reads a portion of the Telus application.
“TMG has also subjected Telus to an undue disadvantage through its insistence on a commercially unreasonable rate for the carriage of its Mediaset service. Specifically, the rate TMG has demanded for Mediaset would prevent Telus from providing its customers with greater diversity and choice in Italian-language programming and affect its ability to attract customers seeking such programming,” the application continues.
In the meantime, Telus has asked the CRTC to “relieve it of its obligation under the 1:1 rule to the extent that TMG’s third-language services are required to ensure such compliance. To do otherwise would enable TMG to leverage its dominant position in the Canadian market as a provider of third-language services to force BDUs into non-compliance unless they accept unreasonable rates for carriage,” reads the Telus complaint. The BDU still offers RAI Italia, which is the international feed of the Italian public broadcaster.
“It is obscene that a $30 billion telecom would choose now, during a pandemic when people and businesses and being pushed to the brink, to attack us.” – Aldo Di Felice, TMG
We asked TMG for a comment on the Telus complaint and in an email statement, the broadcaster sees things much differently.
“As an independent ethnic media organization with limited resources, we are focusing on the immediate needs of our constituents – our staff, our collaborators, our clients, our viewers and our community partners,” said president and CEO Aldo Di Felice in the email.
“The past four months has been taxing on our organization, like many other small businesses in Canada. It is obscene that a $30 billion telecom would choose now, during a pandemic when people and businesses and being pushed to the brink, to attack us. And even more distressing that the federal broadcast regulator entertains such abusive bully tactics given their history with this file for almost a decade.”
The two companies have been at odds before.
“Both the CRTC staff and Telus are well aware we have repeatedly offered all our seven ethnic TV channels to Telus – culminating in a failed mediation last summer where Telus retaliated to our simple request to comply with the current Let’s Talk TV revised BDU regulations requiring packaging, by dropping our main channel ( with the CRTC mediator’s encouragement and the Commission’s blessing no less!).
“But even worse, this whole fiasco goes as far back as Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2013-474. In 2013, with the CRTC staff’s encouragement and assurances, we reluctantly filed a formal application that Telus comply with the then-BDU regulations to carry our Italian channel Mediaset Italia, and the CRTC abruptly decided that they would revoke those regulations rather than enforce them,” continued Di Felice.
“We consider this just one more example of the many abuses we have endured and survived over the past 35 years. Just more evidence, as if we needed more, that sweeping reform of the rules governing dominant multibillion-dollar companies that control the industry and have overwhelming sway over the regulator itself, are urgently needed.”
Intervenors have until August 24 to comment.
