In a decision issued on Tuesday, the CRTC Société Radio-Canada by offering its paid subscription video-on-demand service, ICI TOU.TV EXTRA, free of charge to TELUS customers, considers itself to be giving itself no undue preferences and does not give such preference to TELUS Communications inc.
According to the council, the SRC The exclusive rule of programming offers shall not be violated by the offer concluded with TELUS in connection with the distribution of TOU.TV EXTRA to its customers
.
In his complaint filed on October 30, 2019 on behalf of Videotron, Quebecor President and CEO Pierre-Carl Bellado argued that the TOU.TV EXTRA paid subscription service violated the rule of exclusive programming offerings by entering into an agreement allowing only TELUS subscribers in Quebec to receive TOU.TV EXTRA for free.
He also believed that the agreement with TELUS guarantees SRC group of millions of subscribers, thus creating unfair competition for radio distribution companies (EDR) Existing.
However, the Board noted that Rogers had already benefited from such an agreement and that SRC He claimed to have already introduced it to Videotron.
In addition, the CRTC It is considered that TOU.TV EXTRA does not have the characteristics of a file EDR Conventional and therefore does not commit to providing a basic package or contributing to Canadian programming in the same way as a file EDR.
Instead, the Commission considers the video-on-demand service ICI TOU.TV EXTRA to be a radio program that undertakes to transmit programs only over the Internet, such as Netflix or Club illico.
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