Canadian Rivals CBC and Quebecor End Bitter Feud

TORONTO – Canadian TV giants Quebecor and the CBC/Radio Canada have ended their feud.

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Quebecor, which has used its newspapers and all-news TV channel Sun News Network to campaign against CBC/Radio-Canada for withholding advertising contracts, has inked a deal that will see the pubcaster buy print and digital ads in its newspaper and magazine properties.

And Quebecor in turn inked a deal to have its Videotron cable unit in Quebec renew distribution agreements to carry CBC/Radio Canada TV channels.

"As leaders in their respective markets, we were always convinced that our newspapers made it possible for Société Radio-Canada to reach the broad audience that its mandate enjoins it to reach,” Pierre Karl Péladeau, president and CEO of Quebecor and its Quebecor Media subsidiary, said Monday.

The bitter rivals last year fought a public battle against one another that included threats of lawsuits and charges of unfair use of taxpayer subsidies.

But Quebecor took a recent hit when a top advisor to the Canadian prime minister ruled the public broadcaster was not boycotting Quebecor’s Sun Media newspaper chain in its advertising contracts.

The public attacks and counter-attacks came as a Parliamentary committee in Ottawa probed the CBC for withholding key programming expenditure data from federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault, who was looking to answer freedom-of-information requests from Quebecor media outlets like Sun News Network and its Sun Media newspaper chain.