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The commission said in a release Tuesday it had concerns around the Sportsnet Winter Games, specifically that “a high proportion of the benefit funds would be devoted to non-programming expenses, that the programming resulting from the initiative would be short-lived and that it would exclusively benefit and be useable by Rogers.”

It gave Rogers until May 30 to submit an alternate proposal for the tangible benefits package.

The CRTC also renewed The Score’s licence until August 2014 (when other Rogers-owned TV services will next be up for renewal) and approved two amendments to its licence.

The Score can now bump up the amount of analysis and interpretation to 15% up from 10% and is no longer required to break into live sports events every 15 minutes to show video highlights and sports results (it will instead do so once every hour).

Rogers Media, the company’s media arm, first announced plans to buy Toronto-based Score Media’s sports television network and related TV assets last August.

The Score is Canada’s third largest sports channel (after BCE Inc.-owned TSN and Rogers’ own Sportsnet) and reaches 6.6 million television subscribers.

Keith Pelley, president of Rogers Media, said in a statement Tuesday the acquisition would complement the company’s existing sports offerings and “significant investment in sports content and experiences.”

Rogers hopes its strategy of investing in sports programming, which is best viewed live, can help combat the small but growing trend of cancellation of cable subscriptions in favour of online content.