Bell Media is no longer seeking damages from Rogers Communications in its legal action over Rogers’ multi-year deal with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), instead focusing its efforts on WBD’s alleged breach of contract.

In June, Bell Media filed for an injunction and damages against WBD and Rogers after the companies inked licensing agreements for content from channels such as Discovery, Animal Planet, Motor Trend and Discovery Science.

Bell Media is seeking an injunction to prevent WBD from providing Discovery and MotorTrend content for linear broadcast to Rogers for two years, based on what Bell said are non-competition covenants in place in Bell Media’s existing agreement with WBD, which expires as of Jan. 1, 2025. Bell Media and its subsidiaries have operated Discovery Canada since 1994 as part of a joint venture (JV).

In a court document filed Wednesday (Aug. 28), Bell Media said it will “no longer seek relief against Rogers,” stating that it was discovered in the proceedings that WBD “concealed the non-competition covenants from Rogers” and “falsely represented that it had legal authority to supply Discovery content to Rogers for broadcast on linear channels” once the existing agreement with Bell Media expired.

According to the court filing, Bell Media claims that WBD allegedly concealed its negotiations with Rogers for months “in glaring breach of Bell’s exclusive right of first negotiation.”

“Bell Media was astonished to learn that Warner Bros. Discovery had kept Rogers in the dark about critical information when negotiating their licensing agreement for 2025,” said a spokesperson for Bell Media in a statement to Playback Daily, adding that “our efforts are now focused on Warner Bros. Discovery’s breaches to its long-standing agreement with Bell Media.”

“While we will no longer be pursuing an inducement claim for damages against Rogers, we will continue to vigorously enforce our non-compete rights against Warner Bros. Discovery and will ensure that Rogers is also required by the court to respect those rights,” concluded the spokesperson.

A spokesperson for WBD declined to comment. Rogers responded after press time saying that Bell Media is “still asking the court to block Rogers from broadcasting – and prevent Canadians from watching – the Discovery channel for two years, so we’re fighting to make sure Canadians can continue watching the programs they know and love.”

In the filing, Bell Media argued that the two-year non-competition period is necessary to allow the JV to “find replacement content to retain the audience it has built over the course of 30 years.”

Bell Media claimed it negotiated with WBD on renewing the licensing agreement from fall 2023 to spring 2024, which was described as “confounding,” with WBD representatives making “repeated conflicting representations about their intentions on several issues,” including whether Bell could potentially take over operations of Discovery+ in Canada.

Bell Media alleged that WBD misled it “into believing that its exclusive right of first negotiation had been respected,” stating the proceeding revealed that Rogers had initial conversations with WBD about Discovery content in May 2023. Bell Media said WBD disclosed its deal with Rogers on June 3 of this year, roughly a week before it was publicly announced.

In the court filings, Bell Media noted that WBD is in the midst of its own legal action against the NBA, alleging a breach of contract by signing a new distribution deal with Amazon instead of renewing its agreement with TNT, and that WBD has argued that it will lose its competitive advantage. The company argued that the WBD deal with Rogers will result in the same harms for Bell Media, hurting its bargaining position with partners.

Despite the injunction filing from Bell Media, Rogers has moved forward with its broadcast plans, announcing on Wednesday that it will be launching a Discovery channel on Jan. 1, 2025, along with HGTV, Food Network, Magnolia and Discovery ID. Content from Cooking Channel, OWN, MotorTrend, Animal Planet and Discovery Science will be released via Citytv+.

Image courtesy of Bell Media