1 of 1- RadioActive
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CRTC Refuses To Renew Sportsnet Service Rogers Never Launched
It’s been a long time in my memory that the CRTC has said no to Rogers on anything, but on Thursday, they finally did. Ever heard of "Rogers Sportsnet Direct-to-Home Pay-Per-View?" That’s because it never existed. But it was supposed to.
The CRTC licenced the outlet way back in Dec. 1995 but Rogers never launched it. Yet they came before the Commission this month asking for this endless non-starter to be renewed. The decision was a sensible "no."
“Rogers confirmed that the service was not offered to DTH operators and stated that there may be an opportunity to do so within the next licence term. However, Rogers gave no indication of any specific plans to launch the service.
“The Commission considers that Rogers has had ample time to implement the service and is not convinced that the service will be operational within the next licence term.”
Why they would seek to renew something they clearly never had any intention of doing is beyond me. But really, December 1995! Good grief. That’s 24 years!
And I thought CKNT took forever to get on the air.
CRTC Decision
- Radiowiz
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Re: CRTC Refuses To Renew Sportsnet Service Rogers Never Launched
In Rogers defence, 1995 vs 2019. Two very different worlds.
They should re apply under some new creative name and see if CRTC falls for it...
Last edited by Radiowiz (June 27, 2019 12:25 pm)
RadioWiz & RadioQuiz are NOT the same person.
RadioWiz & THE Wiz are NOT the same person.
- RadioAaron
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Re: CRTC Refuses To Renew Sportsnet Service Rogers Never Launched
RadioActive wrote:
Why they would seek to renew something they clearly never had any intention of doing is beyond me.
Costs next to nothing and keeps the option open.
- RadioActive
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Re: CRTC Refuses To Renew Sportsnet Service Rogers Never Launched
Why they would seek to renew something they clearly never had any intention of doing is beyond me.Costs next to nothing and keeps the option open.
Yeah maybe, but how long can you play out the string? If they haven't launched it in a quarter of century (!) I'm pretty sure they won't miss the option and they were never serious about it. I don't blame the CRTC for saying time's up.
Speaking of missing out, and perhaps this should be another thread altogether, I often wonder if Rogers is collectively kicking itself for dumping Shomi, its defunct online streaming service, way too soon. As Radiowiz points out, it was a different time but they likely could or should have foreseen that streaming would become a much bigger deal than it was at launch, and in fact, may one day replace conventional broadcast and cable TV altogether.
It's probably too late for them to recover even if they wanted another kick at that can. Bell's CraveTV has pretty much gobbled up most of the hot properties, like the U.S-based HBO and Showtime properties. And there's currently so much competition, it would be tough to get it going.
In addition to Netflix and Amazon Prime, we now have CBS All Access, Britbox and a few others, with heavyweights like Disney-ABC, NBC, Warner Brothers and others about to enter the fray. (Although how many of them will be available in Canada is an open question.)
I can't help but wonder if Rogers had to do it over again if they would have shut the thing down so soon.
Or they could just have moved it to Missouri.
That's the Shomi state.
Try the veal, I'm here all week...
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Thread Starter- splunge
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Re: CRTC Refuses To Renew Sportsnet Service Rogers Never Launched
Why they would seek to renew something they clearly never had any intention of doing is beyond me.Costs next to nothing and keeps the option open.
Yep. not only that, but it theoretically prevents a duplicate service from trying to launch.
- Retaw
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Re: CRTC Refuses To Renew Sportsnet Service Rogers Never Launched
I doubt Rogers would've kept Shomi going for longer. Given how quickly they killed off Viceland, it's clear they're not interested in humouring money pit media businesses. Outside of sports, their investment in entertainment is low. City has a small handful of original shows. Their other channels are reruns and stuff acquired from the U.S. This is not a company I feel has strong roots in media.
The majority of streaming services are money losers. It probably won't be that way forever, but that is the situation now. Old media is being dragged into it because they fear irrelevance if they don't (or in the case of CBS All Access, they believe it's useful for leverage), but the "smaller" Canadian companies aren't in a position to lose tens to hundreds of millions every year on this stuff. This is why Corus has zero direct to consumer SVOD offering. Bell never talks hard numbers with Crave, which is a good sign they're losing money on it. That explains why they introduced tiered pricing in an attempt to upsell people. Bell can hide the losses because they're a big company in multiple, lucrative telecommunications industries. If Corus were to launch an SVOD service and it lost $100 million/year, it would be noticeable. Rogers wasn't interested in playing this game.
You might remember that Rogers had a partner with Shomi - Shaw. Shortly after that streaming service got sent to the grave, Shaw Communications completely divested itself of its direct media businesses. They're now trying to rid themselves of their ownership in Corus. Would anyone be shocked if Rogers did the same? Their limited investment in media always gave me the indication that they're only in this space because they felt it benefitted their other businesses. If that business (cable television) collapses, there is no need to be in those spaces anymore. It would have outlived its usefulness. I wouldn't be surprised if they kept sports, though. While the contracts are astronomical, there are (comparatively) fewer players for those rights in this market, it can be leveraged for their mobile network and Rogers already has an "in" given their team ownership.
- RadioActive
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Re: CRTC Refuses To Renew Sportsnet Service Rogers Never Launched
That's a really interesting interpretation and I hadn't thought of it that way.
But if streaming ever does start making money (and I expect it will one day become the preferred way of getting what we now call TV) Bell may well have a bit of a Canadian monopoly here. And that's just we need - Bell with another monopoly!
And then there's the other question - how many streaming services can you actually afford? CBS All Access may have a huge Star Trek presence, which many want. Crave/HBO has whatever the next Game of Thrones is. Amazon has its own few breakout hits. You want to see them all. How many are you really willing to pay for?
I hear some people already complaining there are way too many and they just can't afford them all.
And plenty more are on the way, Disney perhaps the biggest one among them.
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Thread Starter- cash
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Re: CRTC Refuses To Renew Sportsnet Service Rogers Never Launched
I doubt Rogers would've kept Shomi going for longer. Given how quickly they killed off Viceland, it's clear they're not interested in humouring money pit media businesses. Outside of sports, their investment in entertainment is low. City has a small handful of original shows. Their other channels are reruns and stuff acquired from the U.S. This is not a company I feel has strong roots in media.
The majority of streaming services are money losers. It probably won't be that way forever, but that is the situation now. Old media is being dragged into it because they fear irrelevance if they don't (or in the case of CBS All Access, they believe it's useful for leverage), but the "smaller" Canadian companies aren't in a position to lose tens to hundreds of millions every year on this stuff. This is why Corus has zero direct to consumer SVOD offering. Bell never talks hard numbers with Crave, which is a good sign they're losing money on it. That explains why they introduced tiered pricing in an attempt to upsell people. Bell can hide the losses because they're a big company in multiple, lucrative telecommunications industries. If Corus were to launch an SVOD service and it lost $100 million/year, it would be noticeable. Rogers wasn't interested in playing this game.
You might remember that Rogers had a partner with Shomi - Shaw. Shortly after that streaming service got sent to the grave, Shaw Communications completely divested itself of its direct media businesses. They're now trying to rid themselves of their ownership in Corus. Would anyone be shocked if Rogers did the same? Their limited investment in media always gave me the indication that they're only in this space because they felt it benefitted their other businesses. If that business (cable television) collapses, there is no need to be in those spaces anymore. It would have outlived its usefulness. I wouldn't be surprised if they kept sports, though. While the contracts are astronomical, there are (comparatively) fewer players for those rights in this market, it can be leveraged for their mobile network and Rogers already has an "in" given their team ownership.
Corus recently launched STACK TV - you have to be an Amazon Prime subscriber to get it.
Last edited by cash (June 27, 2019 4:12 pm)
- RadioAaron
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Re: CRTC Refuses To Renew Sportsnet Service Rogers Never Launched
Corus recently launched STACK TV - you have to be an Amazon Prime subscriber to get it.
Which is probably their best bet. Not spending extra money on programming rights since it's stuff they already own, and offloading the streaming costs to Amazon. Pretty low risk.
- RadioAaron
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Re: CRTC Refuses To Renew Sportsnet Service Rogers Never Launched
Back to Sportsnet on-demand, my guess would be that they legitimately had an interest in launching it, but since the CRTC licensing process is so slow, they needed to apply for it first before trying to get any on-demand rights. Rights never came, so the service never launched. In the end, they just bought the team(s).
To further complicate everything, Sportsnet didn't exist in 1995. It launched in 1998 and wasn't owned by Rogers until 2004. This application would have originally been filed by Molson/CTV.
Last edited by RadioAaron (June 27, 2019 6:13 pm)
- Retaw
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Re: CRTC Refuses To Renew Sportsnet Service Rogers Never Launched
That's a really interesting interpretation and I hadn't thought of it that way.
But if streaming ever does start making money (and I expect it will one day become the preferred way of getting what we now call TV) Bell may well have a bit of a Canadian monopoly here. And that's just we need - Bell with another monopoly!
And then there's the other question - how many streaming services can you actually afford? CBS All Access may have a huge Star Trek presence, which many want. Crave/HBO has whatever the next Game of Thrones is. Amazon has its own few breakout hits. You want to see them all. How many are you really willing to pay for?
I hear some people already complaining there are way too many and they just can't afford them all.
And plenty more are on the way, Disney perhaps the biggest one among them.
I'm sure streaming will eventually make money. Cable started in the pits, too, though the situations were very different.
I'm not convinced Rogers would necessarily object to a Bell monopoly over Canadian SVOD. I can see a future where Canadians consume media exclusively through Crave, [the service currently known as Gem that'll inevitably be relaunched under a different name a few years from now], Sportsnet Now and foreign services. If you look at Rogers' financials (page 15), you'll see media isn't a big business for them. It's not insignificant in terms of revenue, but it's nowhere near their most important. Worse off, the margins are dramatically worse than everything else. Between killing off some channels, selling their magazine business and skipping their upfronts, it's clear some belt-tightening is being done over there.
I'm not sure what the wall for a person's willingness to subscribe to multiple SVOD services is. To be honest, what frustrates me more is that it's all decentralized. With cable, satellite or IPTV, you got some stuff from multiple different companies all within one ecosystem. In the VOD world, you have multiple apps across multiple devices that all require separate usernames/passwords, software updates and user interfaces.
Bell has the Star Trek stuff in Canada, by the way. It's resulted in Space effectively becoming Star Trek TV feat. the occasional non-Trek show, despite it all also being on Crave. CBS figured they'd make more money selling it to them than using it to get people to subscribe to All Access.
Corus recently launched STACK TV - you have to be an Amazon Prime subscriber to get it.
Stack TV isn't an SVOD service. It's a prettied up cable subscription offered by Amazon. As Aaron pointed out, Corus is not acquiring or otherwise investing in Stack TV beyond the money they've already spent on their linear channels. The technology isn't theirs, nor is there any content exclusive to it. I've been told the VOD offerings are meagre. You don't get every show and you don't get every episode. They have commercials, too. That's identical to their cable VOD stuff. I've heard that the price they're charging for Stack is equivalent to what they charge BDUs to carry those channels, so there is no money lost.