World Cup Coverage Drives Substantial Growth and Value for Bell Media’s Digital Portfolio
There’s a good reason why Bell Media BCE-T president Sean Cohan has two televisions broadcasting a FIFA World Cup match in his Toronto office – and it’s not just because he’s a sports fan, as the memorabilia lining the shelves illustrate.
Putting aside the Canadian team’s historic run, the tournament has been a boon for BCE Inc., the exclusive Canadian rights-holder for the World Cup. Bell will have achieved “multiples of viewership” and “multiples of revenue” compared with the last time the global soccer teams met in Qatar four years ago, Mr. Cohan said.
“I can’t take my eyes off it – so much that I’ve got two screens on it rather than just one,” the New York native jokes from one of the four white leather armchairs in his Toronto office facing the screens.
The last time it broadcast a World Cup – during the fourth quarter of 2022 – Bell saw a 4.7-per-cent boost to media revenue, although its operating expenses were also up 9.2 per cent during that quarter. Mr. Cohan declined to get specific about dollar figures this time around, but said the tournament has given a “significant” bump in subscriptions to its streaming platforms.
As Bell’s earnings from its cellphone and internet businesses have slowed in recent years and its traditional media offerings continued to face pressures, Bell executives have built a strategy around prioritizing the parts of the business with growth potential. In addition to the company’s recent U.S. fibre-network expansion and artificial intelligence data centres, that has meant doubling down on the company’s digital media assets.
Those assets include its sports specialty services, TSN and RDS, as well as for its homegrown streaming platform, Crave, which Bell promoted as a bundled product and which has screened about half of the 104 matches.
At the end of June, Crave had just over five million subscribers, up 330,000 from the previous quarter, and has since added a further 30,000 to reach 5.1 million, he said.
Bell’s growth targets for media are relatively modest, in part because the growth of its digital assets like Crave have been moderated by those of its legacy media divisions, like radio and linear television – real-time broadcasts – which have been affected by sector-wide advertising pullbacks.
Last fall, the telecom set a compound annual growth rate target for its media division in the low-single-digits for revenue and EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, until the end of 2028.
Media revenue made up about 13 per cent of the company’s total earnings in 2025, and finished the year flat compared with the year before. In the first quarter of 2026, the division saw flat revenue once again, and an EBITDA decline of 2.5 per cent.
Bell also set a target of six million Crave subscribers by the end of 2028, which Mr. Cohan said represented a target of about one in three Canadian households, citing a figure of about 15.5 million households in the country. But growth has come sooner than expected, he said. Now, he said, he’s boosting his own target, and hoping to reach one in two households.
That new goal is despite a recent emergence of a potential risk to Crave: The possible future loss of its Canadian license to HBO content, a major selling point for Canadian viewers. HBO parent company Warner Bros. Discovery is set to be acquired by Paramount Skydance later this year, and experts have warned that the combined entity could mean an end to the partnership with Crave down the line.
Mr. Cohan did not say exactly when that contract ends, but said he is not concerned about the near-term loss of that content. “Our HBO deal is a long-term deal that will survive an inevitable transaction, which looks like it’s happening, and we’re confident well into the next decade.”
He emphasized that the company has continued investing in original content, which over the winter holiday season last year made up the majority of the top 10 shows on the platform. Crave has expanded its global distribution channels in order to capture a broader audience, he said.
In one major success, the company added 400,000 net new subscribers in the quarter that it released its popular series Heated Rivalry.
Meanwhile, Bell Media has been cutting costs to moderate pressures on its legacy businesses.
In 2024, Bell said it was cutting hundreds of media jobs, ending multiple television newscasts and divesting 45 radio stations. In 2025, the company’s media division contracted by 200 jobs, as part of a net companywide decline of 1,700 employees, according to financial reports.
For now, though, Mr. Cohan said that he still sees a future for traditional media at Bell, including radio. Last week, Rogers Communications Inc. shuttered six radio stations across the country. And on Thursday, Corus Entertainment Inc. said it would centralize some production of its Global News broadcasts for Alberta while cutting an undisclosed number of roles.
“I think audio is still a viable business. We’re in the audio business long-term,” he said. “At the same time, I’m not going to vilify anybody else for portfolio optimization, for managing the legacy challenges. Certainly, we are not immune to tough decisions.”
Would Bell consider selling Crave? While the company’s executives and board would be bound by fiduciary responsibility to consider offers by competitors to acquire the asset, Mr. Cohan said, Bell currently has “zero plans to sell Crave.” He calls it the “gem” of Bell Media – and one of the reasons he decided to leave his previous job in New York.
“It’s not a strategy that we’re pursuing,” Mr. Cohan said. “But certainly, we’ve got to be commercially minded.”
This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail
