A Canadian judge approved a bid by Ed Rogers to reconstruct the board at Rogers Communications Inc., escalating a family feud for control of one of the country’s largest telecommunications companies.

Mr. Rogers, son of the cable-TV and wireless provider’s late founder Ted Rogers, had sought court approval to replace five of the company’s 14 directors after they opposed his efforts to replace its chief executive, Joe Natale and name new directors.

The...

A Canadian judge approved a bid by Ed Rogers to reconstruct the board at Rogers Communications Inc., escalating a family feud for control of one of the country’s largest telecommunications companies.

Mr. Rogers, son of the cable-TV and wireless provider’s late founder Ted Rogers, had sought court approval to replace five of the company’s 14 directors after they opposed his efforts to replace its chief executive, Joe Natale and name new directors.

The moves met opposition from some Rogers directors, including Ed Rogers’s 82-year-old mother, Loretta Rogers, and two of his sisters. The family controls most of the company’s voting shares through a trust.

A lawyer for Rogers Communications told Judge Shelley Fitzpatrick of the Supreme Court of British Columbia on Friday that the company planned to appeal her decision.

Judge Fitzpatrick ruled that Mr. Rogers had sufficient authority to make the board changes, without elaborating, at a brief hearing. She said she had a lengthy decision that she would release later.

Unlike in other Canadian provinces, British Columbia law allows for directors to be replaced without a shareholder vote if companies meet certain criteria, such as submitting a written resolution backed by at least two thirds of shareholders. Rogers is incorporated in British Columbia.

Ed Rogers controls 97.5% of the company’s Class A voting shares through a family trust, on which he serves as chairman. Class B shares have no votes.

A lawyer for Mr. Rogers told the judge Friday that he was committed not to make any management changes at the company until the matter goes before the appeals court, which is expected to be next week.

Mr. Rogers said in court documents last month that he had grown concerned about the performance of Mr. Natale, who is backed as CEO by a group of Rogers directors including Ed Rogers’s mother and sisters.

In a statement issued Friday night, Mr. Rogers struck a more conciliatory note about the family and boardroom dispute.

“Mr. Natale remains CEO and a director of Rogers Communications and has the board’s support,” he said. “Our family has disagreements like every other family. I am hopeful we will resolve those differences privately.”

Mr. Natale couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

An appeal by Rogers Communications could potentially interfere with the company’s plans to complete its merger with rival Shaw Communications Inc. Rogers’s larger rivals BCE Inc. and

Telus Corp. and consumer-advocacy groups asked Canada’s telecom regulator to delay hearings set for later this month into the proposed $16 billion merger until uncertainty over corporate control at Rogers is resolved

The family power struggle became public last month after the Rogers Communications’ board endorsed Mr. Natale’s leadership and stripped Ed Rogers of his chairman title on Oct. 21. Mr. Rogers responded by replacing five of the opposing directors with new board members, which he said re-elected him as chairman.

A group of Rogers’s directors, including Mrs. Rogers and her daughters, said no other group had the authority to act as the board. The company hasn’t recognized the new directors on its website or regulatory filings.

Mr. Rogers’s mother and one of his sisters have chastised him publicly in statements and social-media posts for endangering the family business. Mr. Rogers has said it is a business matter and he was unhappy with the CEO’s performance.

The ruling was issued after Canadian stock markets were closed. Shares of Rogers Communications ended Friday’s session down 1.6% at C$58.95 in Toronto.

Write to Jacquie McNish at Jacquie.McNish@wsj.com