Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2025-48

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Gatineau, 18 February 2025

Public record: 1011-NOC2025-0048

Notice of application received

Deadline for submission of interventions/comments/answers: 18 March 2025

[Submit an intervention/comment/answer or view related documents]

The Commission received the following application:

Applicant/Licensee and locality

Rogers Communications Inc.
Across Canada
Application 2024-0615-7

Summary

The Commission has received an application from Rogers Communications Inc. to acquire control of the service NBA TV (Canada) from BCE Inc. This application is part of a larger transaction to acquire operations that are not regulated by the Commission, including Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. The Commission will only review the proposed change in the ownership and effective control of NBA TV (Canada) that falls within its mandate. The details of the application are found below.

Application

On 27 November 2024, the Commission received an application from Rogers Communications Inc. (Rogers), on behalf of BCE Inc. (BCE), 8018235 Canada Limited (8018235), 7680147 Canada Inc. (7680147), 8047286 Canada Inc. (8047286), and Toronto Raptors Network Ltd. (TRNL) for authority to effect a change in the ownership and effective control of TRNL, licensee of the national English-language discretionary service NBA TV (Canada)^{Footnote 1}.

The application to change the ownership and effective control of NBA TV (Canada) is part of a larger transaction to acquire BCE’s controlling interest in operations that are not regulated by the Commission, including Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. Specifically, Rogers’s subsidiary 8018235 would acquire from BCE all of its shares in 7680147. The purchase price for all issued and outstanding shares of 7680147 is valued at $4,700,000,000.

When there is a change in the ownership or control of a television service, the Commission requires that the purchaser make financial contributions that support the Canadian broadcasting system. These contributions are known as “tangible benefits,” and they amount to a minimum of 10% of the value of the transaction. The rules governing their application are set out in Broadcasting Regulatory Policy 2014-459 (Tangible Benefits Policy).

This transaction involves a mix of television and other assets and operations that are not regulated by the Commission. As such, Rogers proposed to calculate the value of the tangible benefits based on the proportion of the revenues of NBA TV (Canada) relative to the total revenues from all assets that are part of the transaction. This allocation method is described in paragraphs 77 to 87 of the Tangible Benefits Policy.

Rogers proposed a tangible benefits package of $3,710,952, which represents 10% of the proposed value of the transaction ($37,109,518) for the discretionary television service NBA TV (Canada).

Rogers proposed to direct 48% of the tangible benefits to the Canada Media Fund and 32% of the tangible benefits to the Rogers Documentary and Cable Network Fund, a certified independent production fund. Rogers proposed to direct the remaining 20% of tangible benefits to the Diversity in Sports Initiative to support a $10,000 per year scholarship in sports production from the College of Sports Media.

Finally, as indicated in Broadcasting Information Bulletin 2008-8-2, should this notice generate interventions that raise substantive concerns as determined by the Commission and warrant further discussion, the Commission could decide to proceed with an appearing public hearing. Should this occur, the Commission will communicate this change in process on the Commission’s website.

Applicant’s address:

50 Bay Street, Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario
M5J 2L2
Fax: 416-935-4875
Email: cable.regulatory@rci.rogers.com
Email to request electronic version of application: cable.regulatory@rci.rogers.com

Procedure

Deadline for interventions, comments or answers

18 March 2025

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Rules of Practice and Procedure (the Rules of Procedure) apply to the present proceeding. The Rules of Procedure set out, among other things, the rules for content, format, filing and service of interventions, answers, replies, and requests for information; the procedure for filing confidential information and requesting its disclosure; and the conduct of public hearings. Accordingly, the procedure set out below must be read in conjunction with the Rules of Procedure and related documents, which can be found on the Commission’s website under “Statutes and Regulations.” Broadcasting and Telecom Information Bulletin 2010-959 provides information to help interested persons and parties understand the Rules of Procedure so that they can more effectively participate in Commission proceedings.

An intervention or answer from a respondent must be filed with the Commission and served on the applicant on or before the above-mentioned date. An answer from a respondent must also be served on any other respondent.

Interventions and answers must clearly identify the application referred to and indicate whether parties support or oppose the application, or, if they propose changes to it, include the facts and grounds for their proposal.

Interested persons are permitted to coordinate, organize, and file, in a single submission, interventions by other interested persons who share their position. Information on how to file this type of submission, known as a joint supporting intervention, as well as a template for the covering letter to be filed by the parties, can be found in Broadcasting Information Bulletin 2010-28-1.

The Commission encourages interested persons and parties to monitor the record of the proceeding, available on the Commission’s website, for additional information that they may find useful when preparing their submissions.

Submissions longer than five pages should include a summary. Each paragraph of all submissions should be numbered, and the line ***End of document*** should follow the last paragraph. This will help the Commission verify that the document has not been damaged during electronic transmission.

Pursuant to Broadcasting and Telecom Information Bulletin 2015-242, the Commission expects incorporated entities and associations, and encourages all Canadians, to file submissions for Commission proceedings in accessible formats (for example, text-based file formats that allow text to be enlarged, modified, or read by screen readers). To provide assistance in this regard, the Commission has posted on its website guidelines for preparing documents in accessible formats.

Submissions must be filed by sending them to the Secretary General of the Commission using only one of the following means:

by completing the
[Intervention/comment/answer form]

by mail to
CRTC, Gatineau, Quebec, K1A 0N2

by fax at
819-994-0218

A true copy of each intervention or answer from a respondent must be sent to the applicant and, in the case of a respondent to an application, to any other respondent.

Parties who send documents electronically must ensure that they will be able to prove, upon Commission request, that filing, or where required, service of a particular document was completed. Accordingly, parties must keep proof of the sending and receipt of each document for 180 days after the date on which the document is filed or served. The Commission advises parties who file or serve documents by electronic means to exercise caution when using email for the service of documents, as it may be difficult to establish that service has occurred.

In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, a document must be received by the Commission and all relevant parties by 5 p.m. Vancouver time (8 p.m. Gatineau time) on the date it is due. Parties are responsible for ensuring the timely delivery of their submissions and will not be notified if their submissions are received after the deadline. Late submissions, including those due to postal delays, will not be considered by the Commission and will not be made part of the public record.

The Commission will not formally acknowledge submissions. It will, however, fully consider all submissions, which will form part of the public record of the proceeding, provided that the procedure for filing set out above has been followed.

Important notice

All information that parties provide as part of this public process, except information designated confidential, whether sent by postal mail, fax, email or through the Commission’s website at www.crtc.gc.ca, becomes part of a publicly accessible file and will be posted on the Commission’s website. This information includes personal information, such as full names, email addresses, postal/street addresses, telephone and fax numbers, etc.

The personal information that parties provide will be used and may be disclosed for the purpose for which the information was obtained or compiled by the Commission, or for a use consistent with that purpose.

Documents received electronically or otherwise will be put on the Commission’s website in their entirety exactly as received, including any personal information contained therein, in the official language and format in which they are received. Documents not received electronically will be available in PDF format.

The information that parties provide to the Commission as part of this public process is entered into an unsearchable database dedicated to this specific public process. This database is accessible only from the web page of this particular public process. As a result, a general search of the Commission’s website with the help of either its own search engine or a third-party search engine will not provide access to the information that was provided as part of this public process.

Availability of documents

An electronic version of the record is available on the Commission’s website at www.crtc.gc.ca by selecting the reference number within this notice. It is also available from the applicant, either on its website or upon request by contacting the applicant at its email address, provided above.

Links to comments, replies and answers/final replies filed for this proceeding, and other documents referred to in this notice, are available on the Commission’s “Consultations and hearings: have your say” page.

Documents are available upon request during normal business hours by contacting:

Documentation Centre
Examinationroom@crtc.gc.ca
Tel.: 819-997-4389
Fax: 819-994-0218

Client Services
Toll-free telephone: 1-877-249-2782
Toll-free TTY: 1-877-909-2782

Secretary General

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