There’s a sucker born every minute in the Canadian broadcast system, Ken Engelhart, SVP of regulatory affairs for Rogers Communications, told the CRTC on Monday.

At the regulator’s hearings on vertical integration in the Canadian broadcast industry, which opened Monday in Gatineau, Quebec, the Rogers exec said that, in the current state of things, broadcast and ancillary rights to programming are often be sold as part of one package – except when it came to lucrative TV sport properties.

“For the valuable sport rights, the rights-holders say ‘I’m going to sell TV and ancillary rights separately,'” Engelhart said when fielding questions from CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein.

The Rogers exec then offered an acronym to illustrate how things work: “KISS: Keep it separate, sucker.”

Engelhart said the solution was to ensure all TV rights were made available to all industry players, including rival Canadian broadcasters and content carriers.

“That rule should apply to all television content. The mobile and ancillary rights should be available to all distributors,” Engelhart told the CRTC ahead of rival Canadian content carriers appearing before the commission this week.

But Rogers Communications said traditionally strong undue-preference provisions in Broadcasting Act regulations and CRTC license conditions should be watered down for video made exclusively for ancillary platforms, including the internet, mobile and VOD.

Rogers execs argued 95% of content revenue today comes from TV: “The ancillary platforms are ancillary,” Engelhart told the CRTC.

But when von Finckenstein asked the Rogers execs whether the non-exclusive rule that mobile carriers receive all TV content rights should be extended to other ancillary platforms, Engelhart balked.

“When they (ancillary platforms) become primary, we’ll have to come back to another hearing,” he coyly told von Finckenstein, looking into a future where consumers view video mostly online, rather than on their TV sets.

This week’s CRTC hearings were prompted by major players like Rogers, Quebecor Media, Shaw Communications and BCE becoming vertically integrated players after acquiring major broadcast networks.

In addition, mobile and broadband platforms have assumed a larger role in an increasingly multi-platform world as Canadians move beyond their TV sets to view video content on multiple devices.

The CRTC’s von Finckenstein said major content carriers were now calling in part for more flexible rules when it comes to exclusive arrangements, and in other parts new protections to guard against market inequities.

Rival content carriers and other industry players will appear before the CRTC hearing over the next six days.