Super Bowl broadcasts

Re: Bell tries going deep with high court fight over Super Bowl ads, Jan. 23 It is more than just a bit disingenuous for Bell to be playing the victim card, complaining that the CRTC’s decision to ban “simsub” replacement of U.S. advertising with Canadian advertising during the Super Bowl effectively gives that year’s U.S. broadcaster — and, therefore, its advertisers — “free” access to the millions of Canadians watching the game. The various U. S. networks each spend untold millions of dollars every year putting together a broadcast of the event, and if the Canadian networks are going to simply piggyback on the U.S. broadcasts without adding any value of their own, then they are getting exactly what they are paying for — the rights to air the U. S. broadcast, complete with its advertisements, to Canadian viewers. When a Canadian network puts together, on its own, a quality broadcast of the event that draws its own viewers, it will have a dog in this fight.