Canada’s Rogers to launch six TV channels after sweeping up WBD, NBCU rights
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City will be included in the Bravo line-up
Rogers Sports & Media (RSM) has revealed plans to launch six new speciality television channels in Canada after it struck major trademark and licensing agreements with Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) and NBCUniversal (NBCU) earlier this year.
The Toronto-based company on Wednesday said it would launch channels for HGTV, Food Network, Magnolia, Discovery ID, Discovery and Bravo in Canada. Bravo is set to launch on September 1 this year, while the others will go live on January 1, 2025.
The wide-ranging RSM deal, first announced in June, has turned Canada’s cable TV business on its head and left the existing licensors of those brands – Corus Entertainment and Bell Media – scrambling.
Corus Entertainment’s cable business, which consists of channels including HGTV Canada, Food Network Canada and Cooking Channel Canada, has long been its main profit engine. News that it would lose those brands has sent its share price into free fall, and it is now potentially headed towards a creditor protection filing as it looks to restructure its C$1bn (US$740m) debt load.
Earlier this month, Corus filed a complaint with the country’s broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission, arguing that “Rogers is attempting to imperil Corus in every market: content acquisition as buyer, and advertising and subscriptions as seller.”
RSM president Colette Watson
RSM responded by saying that “Corus has not kept up with the demands of Canadians and is now looking for the regulator to protect their broken business model while we’re focused on meeting our customers’ changing viewing habits.”
Bell Media, which has been a long-term licensor of the trademark and licensing agreements to all Discovery brands in Canada – including Discovery channel, Motor Trend, Discovery Science, Animal Planet and ID – has maintained that it has a non-compete preventing the launch of rival Discovery-branded services in Canada for two years.
Bell Media filed for an injunction in a Toronto court on June 19, and has said on multiple occasions that “we intend to assert our rights with a view to protecting our business.”
In addition to confirming the six channel launches, RSM also unveiled the programming line-up for its Bravo channel, with new seasons of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City (S5) set to air on September 18 and The Real Housewives of New York City (S15) on October 1, in addition to Below Deck Sailing Yacht, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Southern Charm and The Real Housewives of Potomac.
Other major Bravo franchises set to air on RSM’s Bravo channel include Below Deck, Summer House, Southern Charm, Top Chef and Vanderpump Rules.
In Canada, NBCUniversal had previously licensed Bravo series to Corus, which aired the shows on its Slice speciality channel and its streamer StackTV. With RSM picking up the rights, it is rebranding and relaunching its existing OLN channel to Bravo on September 1.
RSM doesn’t currently have enough speciality channel licences for all the new brands it has assumed, so it will need to either rebrand existing ones or apply for new licences.
In its deal with WBD, RSM also picked up Canadian rights to the following WBD brands: Cooking Channel, OWN, Motor Trend, Animal Planet and Discovery Science. Acquired content from those brands will be available on-demand through its Citytv+ streaming app, said RSM.
RSM president Colette Watson said: “We’re delivering the best combination of linear channels and on-demand content from these coveted brands, building on Rogers’ investment to bring Canadians the best sports and entertainment in the way they want to watch it.”
