TORONTO — On October 23, 2025, the all-News station serving Canada’s largest market aired a news report that evening that shared the news that the owner of the American League Champions was giving away 500 tickets for every home game during the 2026 World Series. Details were provided in the report, noting that Rogers Communications Inc. is the parent of the Toronto Blue Jays.
There’s just one problem, one listener pointed out to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council: Rogers also owns the station the report aired on and didn’t disclose it in its story. The CBSC agreed, calling it a breach of the Radio Television Digital News Association of Canada’s Code of Journalistic Ethics.
As the CBSC sees it, “The RTDNA Code requires broadcasters to disclose conflicts of interest, real or perceived.”
And, the CBSC added, the whole matter was easily preventable. “In its news segment on the ticket giveaway, the station expressly mentioned that Rogers owns the Blue Jays. The station could simply have disclosed that Rogers is the owner of both the Blue Jays and CFTR (the Toronto-based AM radio station branded as “680 NewsRadio Toronto.”) With such a mention, the station would have been fully compliant with Article 4.0 of the RTDNA Code of Journalistic Ethics.”
Several factors play into the ruling. First, CFTR acted independently in choosing to cover the ticket giveaway as a news story, rather than in a promotional announcement or commercial. Second, Rogers’ free ticket campaign “undoubtedly generated significant marketing, media and public relations value, positively benefiting Rogers’ public image and corporate branding.”
Rogers disagrees. First, it argued that it would be forced to disclose in every sports update that the Blue Jays, Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors are commonly owned with CFTR. The CBSC explained that there is a difference between what the ticket giveaway news story represents and a typical sports news update.
Second, Rogers said it “understands the danger of having news outlets used as marketing vehicles for the promotion of affiliated services and we have strong policies and practices in place to protect and ensure the integrity of our news product and the trust of our listeners and viewers. In the current case we do not believe a disclosure was required as it was a story of national interest picked up by multiple news outlets thereby distinguishing it from a paid/marketing campaign.”
Bullocks, said the CBSC, noting that news stories focused on the Blue Jays ticket giveaway promotion on other media outlets has no bearing on Rogers’ ethics obligations.
What is CFTR-AM required to do? The CBSC instructed one of Canada’s most-listened-to stations on either broadcast band to announce the decision once during peak listening hours within three days following the decision’s March 4 release, once more within seven days following the release of the decision during the 8:30pm time period, reflecting that in which the news report was broadcast.
Then, within the 14 days following the broadcasts of the announcements, CFTR management is to provide written confirmation of the airing of the statement to the complainant who filed the Ruling Request. It is also obligated to provide the CBSC with a copy of that written confirmation and with air check copies of the broadcasts of the two announcements.
