Interveners not swayed by Rogers-Shaw arguments at CRTC merger hearing

Numerous interveners of the CRTC's Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. merger hearing told the commission in Monday submissions that the incumbents haven't presented a good enough case when it comes to the acquisition's effect on the broadcasting system. Telus Corp. wrote that should the commission approve the acquisition, Telus itself would have to start making similar acquisitions in order to compete. If "it is approved this transaction will also drive the need for further consolidation in the broadcasting sector, by TELUS and others, in an attempt to seek competitive parity through comparable scale," Telus wrote. "It will become the blueprint for future consolidation in the sector." Telus also wrote that safeguards offered by Rogers do not do enough to ensure the proposed transaction is in the public interest. "When conducting its analysis of a proposed ownership transaction, the commission must be satisfied that the transaction would provide significant and unequivocal benefits to the Canadian broadcasting system and to Canadians sufficient to outweigh the concerns raised by the transaction," the company wrote. "What Rogers has offered falls far short of that threshold, and surely cannot represent the best possible proposal in the circumstances." BCE Inc., too, reiterated its call for the commission to reject the proposal, pointing to the putative 47 per cent share of the English-language market that would be controlled by Rogers-Shaw. "Such a level of dominance is unprecedented in a market of this size and will give Rogers the power to ‘make or break’ Canadian programming services, resulting in one provider being able to dictate what content is available to Canadians, on what distribution platforms the content is available, regardless of where they live or which broadcasting distribution undertaking (BDU) they subscribe to," Bell wrote. During last month’s five-day hearing, Bell argued that no amount of safeguards could undo the damage should the transaction be allowed to proceed. Bell’s chief regulatory officer Rob Malcolmson argued that the safeguard proposed by Rogers would "force upon the regulator an administrative and enforcement burden that will be impossible to meet.” “It will result in a never-ending cycle of new claims of abuse of market power, and new pleas for a new safeguard to address a newly discovered use case,” he said at the time. “That should signal to you that the market power Rogers is seeking to acquire here can’t be fixed by a basket of remedies.” In its final submission, Bell pointed to what it said was the conspicuous absence of certain parties, though it didn't specify which. Bell wrote that this development is an indication that the would-be merger is already negatively affecting the broadcasting landscape. "At the hearing, we saw a number of independent programming services not providing further comments, changing their position and/or dropping out of the process entirely. It appears they made carriage deals with Rogers," Bell wrote. "Facing the uncertainty of a with that kind of potential market power, these services have essentially grabbed the deal they could get – especially as this hearing represented the last vestige of any negotiating power they would have against Rogers." The Public Interest Action Centre – acting as well on behalf of the National Pensioners Federation – wrote that nothing presented by Rogers in the hearings changed its view that the deal should not be approved. PIAC argued that the benefits proposed by Rogers – namely the extension of the Connected for Success program to Shaw's customers, the migration of Shaw direct cable and satellite TV customers over to Rogers' own IPTV platform, and the Smartstream over-the-top app – do not constitute benefits. "While this ‘business as usual’ extension of CFS to Shaw territory will be a benefit to some consumers, it will not be an incremental benefit to the whole system," PIAC wrote. "It is simply another aspect of Rogers’ present brand, marketing and 'value proposition' to its present customers." As for the IPTV service, PIAC wrote that “this cannot be twisted into a ‘benefit’ to consumers of BDU services." Shaw customers "will simply pay more for substantially the same TV service," PIAC added, and argued that the Rogers Smartstream app is not a benefit, simply a competing product against similar over-the-top services. — Reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca.

Interveners not swayed by Rogers-Shaw arguments at CRTC merger hearing

Broadcast | December 14, 2021

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Interveners not swayed by Rogers-Shaw arguments at CRTC merger hearing

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