Super Bowl 2019 may be last time Canadian fans see U.S. game ads

Ban on substitution of Canadian ads for American ones to be rescinded under new trade deal

TORONTO — Sunday’s battle between the New England Patriots and the L.A. Rams could possibly be the last Super Bowl game to be available in Canada in its original form — ads and all — through American broadcasts.

Until 2017, Canadian viewers were blocked from the full U.S. Super Bowl feeds, including the commercials that are often produced specifically for the event, as domestic broadcasters were able to substitute their own versions of the broadcasts carried by cable and satellite.

Since then, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has prevented simultaneous substitution, or simsub, during the game despite protests from Bell Media and the NFL.

That rule is set to be rescinded by the government, as part of its renegotiated trade agreement with the United States and Mexico, but the deal has not yet been ratified.

For now, though, Bell Media’s ads during pre- and post-game programming will replace the U.S. ads on the American channels only until kickoff, about 3 p.m. PT on Sunday, and after the game’s final play.

“This means that viewers tuning to the Canadian channel airing the game see Canadians ads, while those tuning to the U.S. channel see the American ads,” the CRTC says on its website.

In recent years, U.S. commercials were not blacked out in the Okanagan.

The blackout only applied in cities with CTV stations. As the Okanagan doesn’t have its own CTV station, the blackout didn’t apply here.

Decades ago, when the Super Bowl was carried by the local station, the American commercials were blocked.

It’s not clear whether the old blackout rules will apply in the future.

Bell Media’s coverage of the Super Bowl will be on CTV, CTV2 and TSN specialty sports channels.

Bell Media spokesman Scott Henderson said in an email that the company had sold all of its available Super Bowl time, and that it doesn’t reveal what it charges advertisers for Super Bowl spots.

The Supreme Court of Canada is considering a Bell-NFL challenge to the CRTC’s authority to impose the regulation, under an appeal of lower-court decisions. But the court fight may be moot. Under Annex 15-D of the new trade agreement, Canada agreed to rescind the CRTC’s 2016 Super Bowl policy so that the NFL’s programming doesn’t receive less favourable treatment than other programming from the U.S. that’s retransmitted in Canada.

In effect, the treaty recognizes that the football league — as owner of the Super Bowl programming rights — has the authority under copyright law to decide who can retransmit its programming.