UPDATED: Rogers snatches content from Corus and Bell

Rogers Communications Inc. announced Monday that it had signed deals to bring programming from Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. and Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal to Canadian screens. Corus Entertainment Inc. issued a news release late Friday stating it had lost the contract with Warner Bros. That contract expires at the end of December. NBCUniversal’s Bravo channel will launch in Canada in September. The Warner Bros. Discovery franchises, including HGTV, The Food Network, Magnolia, the Cooking Channel and OWN, will run under the Rogers banner beginning next January. All are currently on Corus. At its upfronts presentation Monday afternoon, Rogers also revealed that it is taking the Discovery, Motor Trend, Science, Animal Planet and ID channels away from BCE Inc.’s Bell Media. They, too, begin in January. “We’re already home to Canada’s #1 sports network, and these partnerships solidify our leadership in entertainment with a diverse media portfolio of TV’s most iconic brands,” Colette Watson, president of Rogers Sports and Media, said in a statement. In Friday’s press release, Corus president and CEO Doug Murphy called for changes to Canada’s competition rules. “This is an unfortunate example of inequitable structural relationships in the Canadian media and telecom industries, particularly affecting independent broadcasters like Corus,” he said. “It highlights the urgent need for regulatory reform, including rules affecting how market-dominant players interact with suppliers and competitors.” In a Sunday note on the Corus release, financial analyst Aravinda Galappatthige of Canaccord Genuity said the Warner Bros. programming represented over $160 million in revenue to Corus. “This should impact five specialty channels including Food Network Canada and HGTV Canada, as well as smaller platforms such as the Cooking Channel, Oprah Winfrey Network, and Magnolia,” he wrote. “Given the brands themselves would be pulled by Warner Bros. Discovery, this essentially means no continuity for Food Network Canada and HGTV Canada; although Corus continues to hold the licenses for the channels and would likely launch rebranded networks.” Similar comments from Adam Shine, a financial analyst with the National Bank of Canada, pointed to an uphill battle on the horizon for Corus. “We're likely to see complaints to the CRTC and possibly even the Competition Bureau, but it will be difficult to fully replace the material financial contributions involved with new programming and rebranded channels,” said Shine. "This is no easy task and an inevitable shortfall in performance will result entering calendar 2025. Another battle is likely to come from Canadian distributors of these channels which will seek to lower their carriage rates and reposition them within reworked bundles. Arbitration will surely be pursued with the CRTC,” he added. – Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca This story has been updated to include the Bell properties being transferred to Rogers.

UPDATED: Rogers snatches content from Corus and Bell

Broadcast | June 10, 2024

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UPDATED: Rogers snatches content from Corus and Bell

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