Blue Jays games not ‘exclusive to Rogers in perpetuity’: Purdy

Toronto Blue Jays baseball games will be available for online and mobile streaming to customers of Rogers Communications Inc. for the rest of the season, but the cable and wireless provider says it does not intend to “hoard content.” David Purdy, Rogers’ vice-president of video product management, said his company reached out to other Internet and mobile providers several weeks ago but didn’t reach any agreements for access to the service. “Admittedly, it’s halfway through the season and it took a while for us to negotiate the rights. Generally, people have long planning cycles so I could see why they’d pass on it this year, but it’s certainly not going to be exclusive to Rogers in perpetuity,” Purdy said in an interview. Purdy said Rogers would have liked to offer streaming for games from the start of the season but that Blue Jays president Paul Beeston first had to negotiate with Major League Baseball Active Media—which offers streaming of all major league games—for the rights. Rogers will also stream live coverage of the Rogers Cup international tennis tournament to its Internet and mobile customers beginning next week. Rogers owns the Blue Jays and also has the broadcasting rights to the Rogers Cup. Purdy said there are no agreements with other providers yet to offer the tennis matches, but there has been renewed interest since the company made the announcement Tuesday. “It’s certainly not our intention to hoard content—quite the opposite,” he said. “We think the industry benefits when everybody plays fairly and shares their content.” Content exclusivity was one of the key issues at the CRTC’s vertical integration hearings in June, which were held to examine the Canadian media landscape following BCE Inc.'s purchase of CTV and Shaw Communications Inc. acquisition of Global Television last year. At the hearings, Rogers vice chair Phil Lind warned of a time when content could become inseparable from distribution. “Imagine a world where exclusive content deals on ancillary platforms like iPads and iPhones are the norm,” he said. “You could easily end up with Bell owning NHL rights, Rogers owning Major League Baseball rights and Shaw owning NFL football content. Sports fans would be forced to buy three iPhones or three iPads and subscribe to three distributors to ensure they could catch all the action when and where they wanted. This is obviously unacceptable.” At the hearings, Rogers argued that all linear television content should be made available to competitors on all ancillary devices such as mobile and broadband platforms. Of the major wireless carriers, Telus Corp. expressed the strongest opposition to exclusive content deals. Telus warned that companies would guard their own content and sacrifice advertising and content sales in favour of the more lucrative carriage business, using exclusive content to woo subscribers. The company presented a Harris/Decima study that said 54 per cent of consumers would switch providers to get the content they want. At the hearings, Quebecor Media Inc. and Bell Canada argued in favour of allowing exclusive content on mobile devices, saying it would lead to investment and innovation in programming and drive competition. Shaw Communications Inc. said it is against exclusives for linear content but against a blanket prohibition. Richard Paradis, president of consulting firm Groupe CIC and an instructor at the Université de Montréal’s communications department, said if Rogers starts using its links with the Blue Jays to promote its own mobile services, other providers could get irritated. “As long as they make the material available to other potential carriers, it won’t be a problem. But if they refuse it, it may become a problem,” Paradis said in an interview. He said he thinks the commission will be monitoring offerings like Rogers’ Blue Jays streaming service. “It just takes somebody to complain to the commission for the commission to look into the question,” he said. But Purdy said he doesn’t think the CRTC’s ruling on vertical integration, expected sometime this fall, will interfere with mobile and Internet streaming. “I don’t think it will affect it at all because it’s not our intent to make this content exclusively available to Rogers but rather to get it out there and hopefully other cable and satellite providers will follow suit and pick it up,” he said. Paradis said more providers will be looking to use content as a means to differentiate themselves in a competitive mobile market. Bell offered exclusive Olympic content to its customers in 2010, he noted. Purdy said Rogers saw a threefold increase in registration for Rogers On Demand Online when it offered streaming of the 2010 World Cup. Paradis added that smartphone uptake will only raise the stakes. Last week, Rogers reported adding more smartphone customers than ever before in a three-month period. “It’s a hungry market and it’s quite clear that Rogers is trying to position itself to be up front with what it believes is a demand on the part of its clients,” Paradis said. Rogers' sports streaming only marks “the tip of the iceberg”, Purdy said, adding that customers are increasingly looking to view the content they want in a more flexible manner. He said live sports and news allow cable providers to compete with increasingly popular over-the-top services like Netflix Inc., which rely on delayed, library content. “We think that the Canadian broadcasting system will benefit from TV anywhere,” he said. Telus and Bell did not provide comments by deadline Wednesday, and Quebecor and Shaw declined interview requests. mburgess@thewirereport.ca

Blue Jays games not ‘exclusive to Rogers in perpetuity’: Purdy

News | 08/03/2011 10:12 pm EDT

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