fund the creation and promotion of Canadian “webisodes”. The result
is that ISPs, when offering connectivity to television and movie websites,
are not considered to be acting as broadcasters and cannot be
regulated under the Broadcasting Act.
Review of Broadcasting Regulations
In November 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the CRTC did
not have the authority to implement the value for signal regime
outlined in Broadcasting Decision 2010-167, consistent with our
recommendations. As a result, broadcasters will continue to charge
rates to broadcasting distribution undertakings under the existing
regulatory framework.
MEDIA
Licence Renewals
The CRTC considers group-based (conventional and discretionary
specialty) licence renewal applications for major media companies. The
Rogers group includes the City and OMNI conventional television
stations and specialty channels G4 Canada, Outdoor Life Network, The
Biography Channel (Canada) and FX (Canada).
In July 2011, the CRTC renewed the group’s licence for three years,
expiring on August 31, 2014. The terms of the renewal recognize the
group’s differences from the three other large English-language
Canadian broadcast groups (Bell Media, Corus Entertainment and
Shaw Media).
Distant Signals
Conventional television stations have to agree to the carriage of their
local signals into distant markets. BDUs that want to carry time-shifted
US signals must therefore get the consent of each of the three large
English-language networks besides CBC (CTV, Global and City) to carry
their signals in those time zones. We are currently negotiating with
various distributors regarding carriage of distant signals.
Regulatory Approval of Recent Acquisitions
On April 30, 2013, we acquired control of theScore after receiving final
regulatory approval from the CRTC. theScore, which we have
rebranded to Sportsnet 360, was Canada’s third largest specialty sports
channel. As part of the transaction, we received a 10% interest in Score
Media’s digital media assets, which were spun out into a separate entity
called Score Digital.
70 ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS INC. 2013 ANNUAL REPORT