Rogers gets go-ahead for pay audio offering

Despite some initial opposition from incumbent pay audio operators, Rogers Communications Inc.'s Rogers Broadcasting Ltd. division has secured a licence for a new service, dubbed Rogers Pay Audio."As an enterprise, I think Rogers is committed to music," says David Purdy, VP and GM, Rogers Television. "The wireless guys have clearly led that initiative - their efforts to date have been second to none in Canada in terms of making music available on the wireless platform. We're trying to enhance that or augment that, make it more of a corporate-wide strategy."The proposed service will feature 30 channels initially, with the majority being drawn from contemporary music genres; other programming genres will include oldies, ethnic, children's, and specialty music. It must broadcast an aggregate of 35% Canadian content across its channels on a weekly basis, and a third of its Canadian-produced channels - other than those that are solely instrumental music or third-language-based - must feature a preponderance (65%) of French-language vocal music.In addition, Rogers Pay Audio will be bound by a 1:1 linkage ratio of Canadian-produced to non-Canadian-produced channels. Finally, under the terms of licence, spoken-word programming will be limited to the children's services only, except for promos, drops and track IDs.Although Rogers Cable also carries both Max Trax and Galaxie, the two nationally available pay audio services at present, that didn't stop their respective owners - Corus Entertainment Inc. and the CBC - from voicing concerns about Rogers' proposed service.Corus, in particular, was concerned that provisions in the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations that mandate Rogers distribute at least one other unrelated pay audio service in addition to its own service would lead to Rogers carrying CBC's Galaxie, since it's not affiliated with a rival cable service, rather than Corus' Max Trax. The Shaw family holds a controlling stake in both Corus and Shaw Communications Inc., which operates both cable and satellite BDUs."Certainly the intent of getting the licence was not necessarily to displace Max Trax or Galaxie," says Purdy, noting that Shaw could also pursue a similar course of action by refusing to carry Rogers Pay Audio on its distribution networks.In addition to Galaxie and Max Trax, Rogers currently carries a number of over-the-air conventional radio stations on its cable network - a total of 24 in the Ottawa area, for example - both from the Rogers Media stable and from other broadcasters.In April, Rogers also signed an agreement with XM Canada that will see select channels from the service carried on cable as well as wireless and Internet platforms, and is reportedly pursuing a similar deal with the second national satellite radio provider, Sirius Satellite Radio Canada."They've got a lot of very interesting content that's not available anywhere else, so in addition to the commercial music-free services they have some talk radio content that's unique to them," says Purdy of XM's lineup. "I'm referring to the Oprah content and some of the sports league content that they carry."Reiterating his earlier point, Purdy says all of these various audio content streams will help differentiate Rogers' cable offerings from those of competitors, as well as make the set-top box the focus for more than just television."We're looking at other music offerings that would effectively turn that Rogers digital box into an on-demand jukebox," he says.Bell ExpressVu has had the ability to distribute satellite radio services since March. More recently, on June 1 Cogeco Cable Canada Inc. had its request to carry one or more satellite radio services approved.UPDATE: On June 5 the commission announced a change of licence application by Shaw Communications Inc. that would allow its various cablesystems to carry satellite radio services as well.

Rogers gets go-ahead for pay audio offering

Broadcast | June 4, 2007

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