Pierre-Karl Péladeau is currently living a waking nightmare as Bell Media continues to weave its web and take a considerable lead in the race for broadcast rights to the NHL and especially to the Montreal Canadiens’ regional matches.
After having made a first masterstroke by partnering with Amazon Prime, Bell is now moving up a gear by offering a joint RDS+Crave subscription, hinting at a formidable strategy for 2026, the year when NHL rights will be renegotiated.
For TVA Sports, already on life support with losses of around $300 million, this new offensive from Bell could well be the final blow.
The journalist Maxime Truman summed up the situation with sharp lucidity:
“Bell Media now offers an RDS+Crave package. I’m starting to think more and more that regional Canadiens games will be broadcast on Crave as early as 2026.”
This statement speaks volumes about the direction Bell is taking. With Crave, a renowned streaming platform that already has hundreds of thousands of subscribers across Canada, Bell is arming itself to dominate the digital market and capture a massive audience that is increasingly abandoning television. traditional.
RDS, previously limited to cable subscribers, will now be able to speak directly to younger generations and sports fans who consume content on demand, on multiple screens, wherever and whenever they want.
In other words. TVA Sports has become hostage to its technological delay
Yes, Pierre-Karl Péladeau’s station finds itself caught in a trap that it set for itself: the absence of a credible digital platform.
Illico, its video-on-demand service, is far from living up to the modern standards imposed by Netflix, Amazon Prime and now Crave.
Inflexible, poorly optimized and largely neglected by younger generations, Illico has never been able to establish itself as a serious digital player.
Unlike Crave, which benefits from Bell’s enormous strength and its diverse content (series, films and sports), Illico remains an aging platform, unattractive and incapable of offering a fluid and modern experience.
Faced with Bell’s digital offensive, TVA Sports attempted a response with the launch of its new TVA+ platform, supposed to embody the long-awaited modernization of Quebecor in the field of streaming.
Unfortunately, this initiative turned out to be a dismal failure. Launched with a lot of noise and ambition, TVA+ simply failed to appeal to the Quebec public.
Not very ergonomic, with an outdated interface and a limited content offering, the platform suffers from a cruel lack of interest.
Worse still, it is practically non-existent in the French-speaking digital ecosystem and struggles to compete with the already well-established streaming giants.
Meanwhile, Crave continues to establish itself as the true heavyweight of the Canadian market. With its strategic partnership with HBO, Crave has established itself as an essential platform for lovers of premium content.
The HBO brand, recognized worldwide for its quality productions, chose Crave as its exclusive broadcaster in Canada for a simple reason: its solid infrastructure, its impressive reach and its ability to offer a first-rate user experience.
We are talking here about the “Canadian HBO,” a platform that enjoys credibility and recognition that TVA+ is far from achieving.
It’s no coincidence that the NHL and Geoff Molson will turn to Crave in 2026.
The league, always looking for new revenue and increased visibility, sees in Crave a strategic ally capable of offering national, bilingual, and above all multiplatform exposure.
Crave is already available on all modern devices – smart TVs, gaming consoles, mobile devices – and its presence in the digital space is second to none.
For the NHL, which seeks to maximize its audience and attract younger generations, partnering with such a solid player is obvious.
In comparison, TVA+ is struggling to make a name for itself and remains practically invisible. Its content catalog, a simple extension of VAT, is limited, its interface is far from intuitive, and its promotion is almost non-existent.
The general Quebec public ignores it, preferring to turn to platforms that offer a much richer and varied experience.
Even Quebecor employees, privately, admit that TVA+ is a poorly put together project, launched in haste to try to hide the company’s blatant technological delay compared to Bell and its partners.
-The observation is brutal: Quebecor has never been able to build a real streaming platform worthy of the name.
The fight between TVA Sports and Bell Media for NHL broadcast rights is no longer being played out only on traditional television, but in the digital arena.
And in this area, TVA Sports is already largely outdated.
If nothing changes by 2026, the NHL could turn its back on TVA Sports for good, and that day will mark the end of a dream that became a nightmare for Péladeau.
Therein lies TVA Sports’ biggest problem: a broadcast model anchored in a bygone era, incapable of keeping up with the rapid evolution of consumption habits.
While Bell multiplies partnerships and prepares an ambitious digital future, Péladeau and Quebecor find themselves trapped in a cable distribution model that no longer meets public expectations.
With the NHL’s exclusive French-language broadcast rights expiring in 2026, Bell seems perfectly positioned to take a big piece of the pie from TVA Sports.
The joint RDS+Crave offer opens the door to hybrid broadcasting that combines the reach of cable and the flexibility of digital, a winning formula in the era of streaming.
Hockey fans, once forced to choose between traditional television and specialized subscriptions, will now have an all-in-one solution that risks completely eclipsing TVA Sports.
Internally, at Quebecor, there is panic. Despite Péladeau’s massive investments and stubbornness to keep TVA Sports afloat, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the channel cannot compete with Bell’s arsenal.
It’s not just a question of broadcasting rights, it’s a structural problem. Bell has the infrastructure, technology and resources to adapt its offering to the changing needs of the market, while TVA Sports struggles to simply maintain consistent programming.
Hockey fans know: user experience is now as important as the content itself.
Being able to watch a match on the go, rewatch sequences on demand, and benefit from multiplatform coverage have become standards that TVA Sports simply cannot offer with its current tools.
This situation is all the more frustrating for Péladeau, who relied on the exclusivity of NHL rights to guarantee the survival of TVA Sports.
But the reality is merciless: without a modern and efficient platform, this exclusivity loses its value.
Even the Canadiens’ most loyal fans are gradually turning to Sportsnet and RDS, attracted by much superior broadcast quality and features.
The next battle for the NHL’s rights won’t just be about money, but more importantly technology and adaptability.
In this area, Bell is already well ahead, and the situation of TVA Sports appears more precarious than ever.
The absence of a platform worthy of the name practically condemns Quebecor to losing its status as the main broadcaster of French-speaking hockey.
Pierre-Karl Péladeau may repeat that he believes in TVA Sports, the reality is that he is losing the war before it even begins.
Quebecor’s business model, based on traditional subscriptions, has become outdated in the face of Bell’s ambitions and the public’s expectations.
The RDS+Crave offer is a clear signal: Bell is preparing in a big way for 2026, and TVA Sports simply does not have the means to compete.
If nothing changes quickly, TVA Sports could well disappear from the Quebec media landscape, becoming a simple footnote in the history of sports broadcasting.
Péladeau must choose between investing massively in a new digital platform, or accepting that his dream of dominating the hockey market in Quebec is now out of reach.
The countdown is on, and for TVA Sports, the time is more than ever for survival.
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