Rogers Communications’ results for the second quarter ended June 30, saw total revenue and total service revenue each increase by 1%, driven by revenue growth in the company’s Wireless and Media businesses. Wireless service revenue increased by 4% in the quarter, primarily as a result of growth in its mobile phone subscriber base over the past year, while Wireless equipment revenue decreased by 5%, primarily as a result of fewer device upgrades by existing customers. Total Cable revenue and Cable service revenue decreased 2% and 3%, respectively. Media revenue increased by 7% as a result of higher sports-related revenue, primarily at the Toronto Blue Jays, partially offset by lower Today’s Shopping Choice revenue. Media adjusted EBITDA decreased by $4 million this quarter, primarily due to higher Blue Jays expenses, including player payroll and game day-related costs.
Rogers, Cogeco and CBC/Radio-Canada were among the Canadian broadcasters that saw some disruption from Friday’s Microsoft outage triggered by a sensor configuration update to Windows systems released by cybersecurity platform, CrowdStrike. CBC did not immediately confirm reports its Dalet asset management system was among software workflow tools affected, impacting ingesting, editing and publishing in some instances. The public broadcaster told Broadcast Dialogue some radio and television programs did not air as scheduled and were replaced with other programming. At Cogeco’s The Beat 92.5 (CKBE-FM) in Montreal, morning show hosts Natasha Gargiulo, Mark Bergman, and Catherine Duranceau arrived to find no access to computers. Read more here.
The CRTC has called for comments on the Independent Local News Fund (ILNF) ahead of a focused review of the ILNF regulatory framework, in light of Corus Entertainment’s application requesting funding for its Global stations; and the commission’s proposal to require certain online undertakings with more than $25 million in revenue to make an initial base contribution of 1.5% of annual revenue from Canadian activities to the fund. The fund was established in 2016 to support television stations that offer local news and information and do not benefit from being part of a larger vertically integrated company. The deadline for comments is Sept. 6.
The CRTC has approved an application from CBC for PNI (programs of national interest) and CPE (Canadian programming expenditures) relief for coverage of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The CBC has regularly requested relief during the years of the Olympic and Paralympic Games because the broadcasts result in an increase in CPE, which in turn increases PNI expenditure obligations. The CBC noted that without this relief, it would have to make challenging programming choices to comply with its PNI requirements, including lowering expenditures on other, non-PNI programming, including independent productions.
Blue Ant Media has filed a Part 1 application requesting the CRTC reduce its required PNI (programs of national interest) spending, citing a stranglehold on its ability to spend money on content that its audiences want to watch. Blue Ant is asking that it be allowed to put five, rather than 13.5% of its previous year’s revenues into PNI, saying broadcasters are being forced “to spend their production budgets on certain genres of programming in a manner that is not aligned with their business strategy or with audience demand,” pointing to the fact that foreign streaming competitors don’t have such restrictions. “Due to our PNI requirements we are simply unable to create the right mix of content,” it said. “This impacts not only our Canadian broadcast revenue which is directly tied to our ratings, but also our ability to monetize the content we commission with global audiences through our global channels and distribution sales.”
The Federal Court has granted a new website-blocking order that will force broadcasters to block websites streaming different sports league matches for next season. The order draws on previous site-blocking precedent but deviates in that it is being applied to multiple sports in a single order. It also applies a permanent ban on the defendants from broadcasting unlicensed content, including all live pre- and regular season NBA games and, in the case of streaming service FuboTV, Premier League soccer matches for next year. The order also includes a mechanism to add other live sports events via a court judgment, which has already been used on sites illegally streaming the UEFA Euro 2024 final.
