Toronto Blue Jays Ben Revere takes the field to play the Oakland Athletics during their MLB baseball game in Toronto, Thursday August 13, 2015.Mark Blinch for The Globe and Mail
Just as the Toronto Blue Jays are catching fire and drawing record audiences on television, the network that broadcasts the team's games has been pulled from Bell Canada's mobile TV app.
Wireless subscribers with Bell, which is owned by BCE Inc., received alerts this week that the City and Sportnet networks – which are owned by rival Rogers Communications Inc. – "will no longer be available on Mobile TV" starting Aug. 14.
Bell's mobile TV app allows wireless customers to stream live and on-demand content from a range of stations to their smartphones and, as of early this year, had attracted more than 1.5 million subscribers.
In July of 2013, a Bell news release trumpeted the addition of City and Sportsnet to the app, with an executive saying that, "Thanks to successful relationships with Canada's top content providers ... Bell Mobile TV just got better."
On Friday, the app took a step backward. The contract that allowed the networks to be offered as mobile TV has run out, and the two communications behemoths have yet to agree on a renewal.
"We weren't able to reach agreement on rates but remain open to offering the channels," said Bell spokesman Mark Langton.
A spokesperson for Rogers, Aaron Lazarus, declined to comment "on ongoing negotiations," but noted that some mobile content from City and Sportsnet is still available through other apps including the City Video App and Sportsnet Now.
Mobile TV is an important new front in the battle between large media and telecommunications companies that are seeking to keep subscribers on board in the face of new challenges from online-based competitors.
Earlier this year, Bell suffered a setback when the federal broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), ordered the company to stop offering its customers a $5 add-on that let them stream 10 hours of mobile TV each month without it counting against their data cap.
The CRTC ruled that the way Bell had crafted the package, with its data exemption, gave the company's mobile programming an unlawful preference over other Web-based services. Bell is challenging the ruling in court, but lost a bid to keep the offer in place pending the outcome of its appeal.
James Bradshaw