CRTC Waives Content Levy as Corus Control Passes to Lenders

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved on 17 September 2026 a recapitalization plan that transfers effective ownership of Corus Entertainment to its lenders, ending decades of control by the Shaw Family Living Trust, according to Corus’ own announcement. Under the plan, roughly $500 million in debt held by lenders will be exchanged for equity in a newly formed parent company, NewCo, which will wholly own Corus and its broadcasting licences, as detailed in Broadcast Dialogue’s reporting on the approval.

Richmond Hill-based Canso Investment Counsel Ltd. will emerge as the largest single shareholder, holding approximately 44 percent of the voting interest in NewCo, Broadcast Dialogue reported. The CRTC concluded that no single shareholder would hold majority control and that effective control would rest with NewCo’s board, a determination that allowed the deal to proceed without triggering the ownership-transfer rules that would otherwise apply to a change of this scale.

A levy waived at the regulator’s discretion

Ordinarily, a change of ownership or control of a broadcasting licence obliges the acquirer to pay tangible benefits, financial contributions that typically run to 10 percent of a transaction’s value for television services and fund Canadian content production. In this case, the CRTC exercised its discretion to exempt Corus from that obligation entirely, according to Broadcast Dialogue’s account of the decision.

Corus had argued for the exemption on the grounds that its financial position was too fragile to bear the levy, a position it disclosed in its application and repeated in its own press release. The regulator’s approval was conditional on Corus filing amended bylaws enforcing Canadian board composition rules and submitting the citizenship status of its initial NewCo directors within thirty days, conditions aimed at satisfying foreign-ownership restrictions rather than the content-funding mandate the levy normally serves.

A coalition of minority shareholders, representing roughly five percent of outstanding Class B shares, had urged the CRTC beforehand to reject the plan or demand a full public hearing, arguing the transaction concentrated control among unidentified financial investors without adequate transparency, as described in Broadcast Dialogue’s coverage of that intervention. The coalition specifically opposed the tangible-benefits exemption, noting it would otherwise have injected six to ten percent of the transaction’s value directly into Canadian content production. The CRTC proceeded to approval regardless, without granting the requested hearing.

What the exemption means for content funding

The tangible benefits policy exists because the CRTC’s own mandate rests on the premise that ownership changes in Canadian broadcasting should generate reinvestment in Canadian programming. Waiving that requirement for a transaction of this size raises a straightforward question: if the regulator can suspend the mechanism meant to fund its stated purpose whenever a company pleads financial distress, what is left of the policy as a meaningful constraint rather than a discretionary formality. Corus, for its part, framed the approval as enabling it to continue operating as an independent Canadian broadcaster and contributing to Canadian content, a claim made in its application to the Commission but not tested through the public hearing the minority shareholders had requested.