NHL contract was factor in Rogers’ 700 MHz auction bidding

Rogers Communications Inc. made it clear Thursday that there was a connection between the several billions of dollars it spent separately on National Hockey League content and wireless spectrum in recent months. While details were scarce, the company was explicit in linking the spectrum for which it pledged $3.29 billion in February with the 12-year deal for exclusive national rights to broadcast NHL games on television and digital platforms it secured for $5.2 billion in deal announced in November. “We had a very comprehensive economic model which included , and it included how our customers are consuming data overall, and it included the value of all that translated into a price for the spectrum that would be accretive to the company,” Rogers chief technology officer Bob Berner said in a phone interview Thursday. “We bid what was worth to us with all those things considered, including the NHL.” Wednesday was the deadline for payments to the government from the 700 MHz spectrum auction, which started Jan. 14 and for which results were announced Feb. 19. Industry Minister James Moore said on Twitter Wednesday that all the companies that bid on spectrum have paid and are now in possession of their licences. The passing of the deadline also means companies are now free to talk in detail about how they plan to use their new spectrum. Rogers spent the majority of the $5.27 billion raised in the 700 MHz auction, which included bids from eight different companies. Telus Corp. and BCE Inc. had not responded, by publication time, to requests from The Wire Report to provide details on their planned use of 700 MHz spectrum, for which they paid $1.14 billion and $565.7 million, respectively. While there was a lack of detail on how exactly Rogers’ 700 MHz spectrum would be used to bring NHL content to its users, Rogers officials made it clear that the pairs of A and B blocks it purchased side by side in most major markets would come into play for hockey coverage. “How we’re going to execute, stay tuned; more to come,” David Purdy, Rogers’ senior vice-president of content, said in phone interview. “But I can tell you that nowhere on the globe will there be any provider, whether it be a broadcaster or a communications company, with the comprehensive approach that we have to hockey for their most important sport, whether it be Premier League soccer in the U.K. or cricket in Asia. “We will have an incredibly compelling experience that Canadians, I think, will be dazzled by.” Berner said having the side-by-side blocks of spectrum, as Rogers got from the spectrum auction, “has a lot of value” for video transmission. “By having them beside each other, you get a multiplied impact of the total capacity and the number of customers we can support and the amount of information that we can push through it.” Rogers said in a press release issued Thursday that the new spectrum would be deployed some time this year. It added that the amount of video consumed on smartphones and tablets had grown 700 per cent since 2011, with sports being a key driver. Purdy added that Rogers’ mobile traffic spiked about 50 per cent during the men’s hockey semifinal between Canada and the United States during the Winter Olympics this year. “We’re of the belief that sports is probably what’s going to drive mobile video consumption … and of those sports that are available out there, the NHL is probably the most important and most popular content,” Purdy said. He said this alignment between Rogers’ content and telecommunications strategies will not raise problems from a regulatory perspective. “Rogers was instrumental in helping the CRTC with their vertical-integration policies, so we’re well aware of the regulatory requirements and the regulatory restrictions, so it’s not our intent to run afoul of any of the Canadian regulatory restrictions,” he said. Rogers, along with BCE and Quebecor Inc., are currently the subject of a complaint before the CRTC alleging they are giving certain content “undue preference” through mobile-TV services for which customers are charged a flat free as opposed to assessed regular data charges. — With reporting by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirerport.ca and editing by Peter Henderson at phenderson@thewirereport.ca

NHL contract was factor in Rogers’ 700 MHz auction bidding

Broadcast | April 3, 2014

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NHL contract was factor in Rogers’ 700 MHz auction bidding

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