Rogers alleges WildBrain ‘cannibalized’ its own offerings, in response to undue preference claims

While Toronto-based DHX Television Ltd., which operates WildBrain Television, has accused Rogers Communications Inc. of giving preferential treatment to its competitors in children’s programming, according to Rogers, the “biggest threat” to WildBrain’s linear services is WildBrain itself. WildBrain distributes children's programming through Family Channel, Family Jr., WildBrain TV and French-language service Télémagino. In a Part 1 application filed with the CRTC in September but made public in late January, WildBrain argued that Rogers has given particular “emphasis” to promotion of Walt Disney Co.’s Disney+ and Corus Entertainment Inc.’s YTV and Treehouse services to customers over WildBrain’s own services. WildBrain points to Rogers’ offer of ad-supported Disney+ subscriptions for its broadcasting distribution undertaking (BDU) customers at no additional cost to customers, as part of its “Popular TV” and “Ultimate TV” bundles with internet service. WildBrain argues Disney+ gets better treatment than its own children’s programming does, because Disney+ is “marketed prominently” in the bundled TV/internet offers, while WildBrain’s services are now offered in Rogers’ “theme packs” and do not benefit from prominent channel positioning or marketing exposure. Rogers has since fired back in its reply to the Part 1 by alleging WildBrain has done damage to its linear TV audiences on its own. “ aggressive strategy to make its children’s programming ubiquitous online through distribution on multiple platforms and through various third-party direct-to-consumer (DTC) service providers has cannibalized its linear audiences while building its business online,” Rogers states. Rogers highlights WildBrain’s fiscal 2024 report, in which it “hyped the growth of its online presence on streaming platforms and dismissed the importance of linear broadcasters and platforms.” In one corporate document noted by Rogers, WildBrain says it has “leveraged its extensive content catalogue” to build up its kids’ channel on YouTube, “with billions of minutes of watch time each month and hundreds of millions of subscribers.” “By aggressively targeting online audiences and by offering tens of thousands of videos over multiple online streaming and gaming platforms, WildBrain has significantly undermined the demand for its linear television offerings,” Rogers alleges. The company also states that viewership of WildBrain’s offerings has gone down in the past seven years. “A growing number of Rogers’ customers have ceased watching the programming offered by the WB Services,” Rogers said, arguing that WildBrain has not shown that it has plans to stem the “severe viewership decline” it has seen since 2018. WildBrain did not respond to The Wire Report’s request for comment on the reply by deadline. Meanwhile, Rogers argues that none of the four WildBrain channels in question are comparable to Disney+. “Despite WildBrain’s attempt to characterize Disney+ as a comparable ‘programming service,’ it is not. The WB Services and Disney+ are distinct types of broadcasting undertakings (linear versus online) with different pricing structures. They offer different viewing and navigation experiences, have catalogues that reflect vastly different programming investment levels, serve different audience segments, and achieve audience levels that are not comparable,” Rogers states. Additionally, conflating distribution of discretionary services with Rogers’ “role as an app aggregator” would be “extremely misguided and damaging,” Rogers argues. “They reflect very different commercial relationships, with very different underlying economics,” the company states. But if the CRTC did find that Disney+ is comparable to the WildBrain services, WildBrain has not proved that it has faced a disadvantage because of Rogers, Rogers argues. “Rogers’ Disney+ offer (or an offer with any other third-party app) cannot amount to a preference to Disney+ or a disadvantage to WildBrain,” Rogers states. “Expecting BDUs to defend their distribution strategies, in the absence of clear evidence of direct and tangible harm identified by a complainant, would set a very dangerous precedent that would deter service innovation, reduce choice, and increase prices within the Canadian broadcasting system.” A decision in WildBrain’s favour would “be an extremely regressive form of regulatory intervention,” Rogers argues, “that would prevent the Canadian broadcasting system from evolving and modernizing, to the detriment of Canadian consumers. Interventions concerned about future of children’s programming on TV Two interventions were filed on the matter, by the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) and the Shaw Rocket Fund, which acts as a private investor in Canadian children’s programming, with both concerned that children’s programming is at risk. “While young viewers continue to migrate online, the Canadian linear system and the high-quality Canadian programs that they offer remain important and should not be abandoned. If we abandon our Canadian children’s television services, we will push young audiences out of our broadcasting system,” the Shaw Rocket Fund said. “If our few discretionary Canadian children’s television services are not prioritized, promoted and made discoverable within our broadcasting system today, young Canadian and Indigenous audiences and their parents will certainly continue to migrate to where they can find the desired content outside our broadcasting system, and it will likely not be Canadian content,” the group said. For its part, the CMPA stated that WildBrain is a significant contributor to the children’s genre. “Harm caused to WildBrain’s services translates directly into less support for Canadian children’s programming. The CRTC must take specific and special consideration of children’s programming as a vulnerable genre in the Canadian broadcasting system,” the CMPA said. hdaley@thewirereport.ca

Rogers alleges WildBrain ‘cannibalized’ its own offerings, in response to undue preference claims

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By Hannah Daley
| February 25, 2025

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