A complaint was filed with the CRTC on Jan. 8th that got by many of us. But it certainly is fascinating - a battle between the two biggest station owners in the country. 

Corus' loss of several stations to Bell got a lot of notice here, but this one didn't - the battle between the two biggest TV stations owners in the country. Back on Jan. 8th, Bell filed a complaint with the CRTC over Rogers moving two of its recently rebranded stations - USA Network and Oxygen True Crime - off their regular dial positions on cable to make way for Big Red's newly acquired and similarly formatted Discovery and I.D. 

According to Bell, CRTC rules say there has to be 6 weeks notice before any channel is relocated somewhere else. Bell alleges they got their notice on Dec. 30th and the change happened on Jan. 1st. 

Some of the language in the complaint is quite remarkable.

"The sole reason for the change in channel alignment is to expropriate Bell Media’s audiences for the benefit of RCCI’s (Rogers) related services.

"With respect to the channel realignment proposed for USA Network and Oxygen True Crime, one only needs to look at RCCI’s proposed channel realignment for its Ignite platform in the East to see that RCCI will, in effect, be hiding these services from existing viewers.  In this case, USA Network and Oxygen True Crime will be moved more than several hundred channels away from their current location."

Bell insists there's a lot of similarities between the two separate services and Rogers is trying to confuse the audience - and because Rogers is the largest such company of its kind in Canada, it creates an unfair advantage.

"Rogers is starting this within the context of having just won content rights at the expense of five Bell Media discretionary services as well as five Corus channels.  Clearly it can do this because it is the largest BDU with a national presence and subscribers accounting for almost half of the English-language BDU market in Canada...This is just the beginning; they are following a playbook of how they can dominate the English- language TV sector."

And it goes on from there. The deadline for Interventions is Feb. 7th, and then a ruling will follow after that. It will be interesting to see what the CRTC decides - and what it will mean for both parties and Corus. But how ironic that Bell is complaining that Rogers is trying to use its muscle to hurt their business. 

Pot meet kettle.