Rogers Offers to Sell Omni Channels

TORONTO, July 2: Rogers Communications has offered to
offload its OMNI stations in Vancouver and Winnipeg in order to gain approval
for its bid to acquire the Citytv stations.

According to the Globe and Mail, Rogers made its offer to the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on Friday. It is
seeking approval for its deal to acquire the five Citytv stations that
CTVglobemedia had to divest as part of purchase of CHUM Limited. The CRTC
mandates that a company cannot own more than one station in any given market.
The Citytv stations are in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto.
Rogers operates OMNI networks, featuring religious programming, in Vancouver
and Winnipeg, and has offered to offload these. It is, however, looking to
retain the OMNI stations in Toronto, arguing it operates those on ethnic
channel licenses and therefore those should be exempt from the single-station
rule. It also wants to keep its recently acquired ethnic channel licenses for
Calgary and Edmonton, the Globe and Mail reports.