No more U.S. ads for Super Bowl broadcast
Canadians will not be able to watch American Super Bowl ads during the broadcast of the National Football League’s championship game thanks to the renegotiated trade deal with the U.S. and Mexico.
In an annex in chapter 15 of the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Canada agreed to scrap a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission policy that banned broadcasters from replacing U.S. ads with Canadian ones during the big game, a practice known as simultaneous substitution or “simsub.”
The CRTC introduced the populist rule in 2016 so viewers would stop complaining about missing the big-budget U.S. commercials that some find more appealing than the sport itself. Football fans liked the change, with millions abandoning local broadcasts to watch the game on American stations for the past two years.
Yet the relatively obscure broadcast regulation got swept into the negotiations after major corporations on both sides of the border cried foul. Both the NFL and BCE Inc.’s Bell Canada went on the offensive against the rule that hurt their ability to make money from the most-watched live TV event in the country.
Bell paid the NFL tens of millions for exclusive rights to broadcast the Super Bowl north of the border, a cost it recoups by selling airtime to Canadian advertisers. These ads were previously forced onto every feed, including U.S. stations. But without simsub, Canadians audiences flocked to U.S. stations to watch U.S. ads, decreasing the amount Bell could charge for ad space. That cost it $11 million in 2017 alone, Bell said.
The NFL lobbied the Prime Minister’s Office, the international trade minister’s office and three members of parliament to overturn the rule, slamming the CRTC for changing policy in the middle of its multi-year contract with Bell.
High-profile U.S. senators Marco Rubio and Ron Johnson warned the policy could undermine neighbourly relations in a letter to Canada’s
It’s a positive outcome for content creators, advertisers and the overall Canadian broadcasting industry.
ambassador in Washington.
In the meantime, Bell and the NFL launched a legal battle to try to overturn the rule. They argued the CRTC does not have the power to impose a rule on a single program and that the policy thwarts Canada’s international trade obligations. The federal court dismissed their case, but the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear an appeal. The court date is set for December.
It’s not clear if the USMCA will be ratified before the next Super Bowl. Nor is it clear whether the legal battle will continue given Canada agreed to rescind the policy in the new trade agreement.
Still, Bell praised Canada for including the provision in the revised trade deal. “We thank the government of Canada for overturning an unfortunate decision by the regulator. It’s a positive outcome for content creators, advertisers and the overall Canadian broadcasting industry,” spokesman Marc Choma said in an email.
Bell is looking at its options for the ongoing legal process.
The CRTC directed all questions about the legal process to Global Affairs Canada, which did not return a request for comment. Canadian Heritage, the department in charge of the CRTC, did not return a request for comment by deadline.