RDS

What is RDS?

RDS — Le Réseau des sports — is a French-language sports television service. The CRTC's broadcasting ownership chart for BCE and Bell Media, dated 14 September 2026, records "Le Réseau des sports (RDS) inc." as the licensee of RDS and RDS INFO, held 100 per cent by CTV Specialty Sports Holding Inc.; the same holding company holds The Sports Network Inc., the licensee of TSN. Above them, CTV Specialty Television Inc. is 80 per cent owned by Bell Media Inc. and 20 per cent by an ESPN subsidiary described in the chart as a non-Canadian corporation.^[1]

RDS is therefore a sibling of TSN rather than a French edition of it, and the difference is real: the two services buy some rights jointly and diverge on others, and RDS's schedule is built around Québec properties that have no English-language equivalent on TSN. Bell Media's own press-room page describes RDS as "le leader de la diffusion sportive francophone au Canada" and lists RDS, RDS2, RDS Info, the RDS.ca site and the RDS application as its platforms — the operator's characterisation of itself, carried here as such.^[2]

What does RDS cover?

Hockey is regional. An extension announced on 10 October 2025 gives RDS 45 Montréal Canadiens games a season and TSN 50, for the club's designated broadcast region covering Québec and Atlantic Canada; France Margaret Bélanger, president of Groupe CH Sports and Entertainment, said the club was "thrilled to formally extend this collaboration for years to come".^[5] That replaced a twelve-year agreement announced on 20 December 2013 under which RDS carried 60 regular-season Canadiens games a season through 2025–26.^[4] Hockey Canada announced on 7 January 2020 that TSN and RDS would hold its exclusive multi-platform rights through 2033–34, with RDS the French-language partner across the IIHF World Junior, Women's World and U18 championships and the domestic national championships.^[6]

Canadian football is the other constant. The CFL stated in a release of 21 November 2019 that its games had aired on TSN since 1986 and on RDS since 1989, and that both became exclusive broadcasters in 2008.^[3] Under the six-year agreement the league announced on 28 May 2026, beginning in 2027, "RDS will continue to serve French-language audiences by broadcasting the full slate of Montreal Alouettes games, 25 marquee matchups throughout the regular season, all playoff games and the Grey Cup".^[7] Bell Media's press-room page additionally lists the Ottawa Senators, the NFL and the Super Bowl, MLB and the World Series, the NBA Finals, MLS, LaLiga, Formula One, the PGA Tour and Grand Slam tennis among RDS properties.^[2] See the CFL, the Grey Cup and Canadian football.

What RDS does not have from 2026–27 is the national French-language NHL package. Rogers announced on 3 September 2026 a 12-year sub-licence of those rights to Quebecor, carried on TVA Sports, TVA Sports Direct and illico+ through 2037–38.^[8]

How large is RDS's audience?

No current Numeris average-audience figure, and no current Comscore digital figure, for RDS alone could be retrieved. What is available is category-level and combined-network measurement.

The CRTC's annual highlights of the broadcasting sector for 2024–2025, published on 18 August 2026, separates the sports and national news discretionary services by language and reports that in 2025 the English-language services in that group returned a PBIT margin of 9.4 per cent while the French-language services returned −3.2 per cent, within a group whose margin fell from 14.3 per cent in 2021 to 7.3 per cent in 2025. The same report records that approximately 40 per cent of Canadians said they had consumed sports content on traditional television in the past month.^[9] The negative French-language margin is the clearest published indication of the economics in which RDS and its French-language competitor operate, and it is an industry aggregate rather than a figure for either service.

Bell Media's description of RDS as the leader of French-language sports broadcasting in Canada is the operator's own and is not supported here by a measured figure.^[2]

Since when has RDS existed?

No founding date for RDS from a primary source could be retrieved, and this page does not assert one. The earliest dated anchor available is the Canadian Football League's statement that its games have aired on RDS since 1989.^[3] Hockey Canada's 2020 release states that "for 30 years, Hockey Canada, TSN, and RDS have benefitted from a broadcast relationship", placing that partnership's start around 1990.^[6]

The corporate position is documented precisely: the CRTC chart of 14 September 2026 shows Le Réseau des sports (RDS) inc. wholly held by CTV Specialty Sports Holding Inc. beneath the Bell Media and ESPN split described above.^[1] The date a licence was granted, the date the service launched and the dates of successive changes of control are three different things and only the last is established here.

Why does RDS matter in Canada's sport?

Canada has two language markets in sports broadcasting and they are not translations of one another. RDS is one of the two French-language services that carry professional sport nationally, and it holds the French-language rights to the Canadian Football League and to Hockey Canada's championships — properties for which no other French-language outlet is the rights-holder.^[7][6]

Its position has also been the subject of a regulatory finding. In Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2019-427, issued 19 December 2019, the Commission determined on a complaint by Quebecor that Bell "has subjected TVA Sports to an undue disadvantage and has conferred an undue preference upon RDS" through the way it packaged the two services, and ordered Bell to report back on a new packaging structure by 5 February 2020. That is a finding by the Commission about Bell's distribution practices, dated as stated.^[10]

From 2026–27 the division between the two French-language services is sharper: national NHL games in French run through Quebecor, while RDS keeps the Canadiens regional package, the Alouettes and the CFL, and Hockey Canada.^[8][5] See sports in Canada and the NHL.