Last Week's CRTC Ruling

[ArgoRavi]

I didn't originally think much of last week's CRTC ruling until seeing a post on lionbackers.com about it. The ruling has made it that, beginning in 2017, the Canadian rights holder of the Super Bowl will no longer be able to substitute their signal for the American one so that Canadians will finally be able to have access to those precious Super Bowl commercials. Of course, Bell Media is not happy about this and says that it will cost them lots of money which makes sense as they probably make more from Super Bowl ads than they do from Grey Cup ads. However, with far fewer Canadians watching the Super Bowl on Bell Media, the overall package for the NFL becomes much less valuable here in Canada.

I am not sure how much Bell Media pays for the NFL rights in Canada but, given that they promote the NFL much more heavily than the CFL, I am assuming that it is a fair bit. Perhaps the spin-off effect from all of this is that we will see CTV/TSN's coverage of the CFL and NFL become more balanced starting with the next TV contract or CTV may even opt out of showing NFL games.

[paulwoods13]

If I were Bell I would threaten to sue the CRTC for tangibly diminishing the value of one of my most expensive and valuable properties.

[argolio]

I bet Bell (and possibly others) will sue if this is not reversed.

[shayman]

Isn't it a little weird that the CRTC would make a ruling in respect of one specific broadcast only? If I understand it right, simultaneous substitution would be allowed for everything BUT the Super Bowl.

[Rich]

I bet Bell (and possibly others) will sue if this is not reversed.

I'll bet they won't want to open this can of worms. Sim-sub has been on dubious legal footing for decades. The only reason the US networks haven't fought the theft of their signals is because it's such small potatoes. Now with Netflix and others threatening the whole content distribution system, the networks may want to lawyer up and fight for the remaining scraps. Furthermore, the Canadian cable giants were supposed to reinvest the profits from US programming into Canadian productions, and can you picture them telling a court why they never fulfilled this end of the bargain?

Either way sim-sub is on its way out, sooner or later. Original Canadian programming that draws well, like the CFL, will be at a premium like never before. This announcement is fantastic news for the league.

[AngeloV]

If this goes through, I can see Bell moving all their NFL programming over to TSN. Why waste an over the air signal if there is no significant benefit to do so?

[ArgoRavi]

If this goes through, I can see Bell moving all their NFL programming over to TSN. Why waste an over the air signal if there is no significant benefit to do so?

And if that happens, might CTV be interested in the CFL? Like Rich, I see some potential good news in the fallout over this for the CFL if they can even get one or two games onto CTV per week or even the playoffs/Grey Cup and get some additional exposure to those who don't have cable (which is still not an insignificant number).