The battle over whether broadcasters have the right to charge cable and satellite providers for carrying their programs is headed to the Supreme Court.
Rogers Communications Inc. plans to file a leave to appeal with the top court over a decision this week by the Federal Court of Appeals.
That court ruled that the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission had the right to establish a regime whereby broadcasters could attach a monetary value to their signals.
But the Federal Court of Appeals decision was not unanimous, making an appeal more attractive.
Rogers (publisher of Marketing) and other distributors of TV network signals argued that the so-called value-for-signal issue (long known as fee for carriage in the industry) was a matter of copyright and not in the jurisdiction of the CRTC.
Rogers will likely be joined by other cable and satellite firms in filing the leave to appeal.
The cable and satellite companies have warned that the extra costs will be passed on to consumers, but private broadcasters have warned repeatedly that without the extra funds, they would have to shut down more local stations and cut back on Canadian productions.
Since the value-for-signal debate began, major networks such as CTV and Global have been purchased by the very distributors they were fighting.
