CRTC ANNOUNCES DIGITAL CHANNELS DECISIONS
By Adnews Staff
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has identified the winners of licences for new digital pay and specialty television channels. Sixteen English-language licences and five French-language licences for category one specialty services have been awarded. Only a single category one licence is granted per genre. Cable and satellite companies will be obligated to carry category one channels. Among the winners are Rogers and Shaw for a biography channel and a computer channel called TechTv. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation won a licence for a documentary channel with Corus Entertainment and the National Film Board. CBC also won a licence for a channel called Land & Sea, also co-owned by Corus. CHUM Television won a licence for a fashion channel, Learning Skills Television for a book channel and Levfam Holdings for a gay channel. Global TV got approval for a mystery channel co-owned by Rogers and for a channel called Men TV, co-owned by Groupe TVA. Alliance Atlantis took a licence for a health channel, while CTV and The Sports Network won a slot for women's sports coverage. CTV's parent BCE received approval for a travel channel. Licenses were also granted to Salter Street Films for an independent film channel, Vision TV for a spiritual channel, Stornoway Communications for a public affairs channel and Craig Broadcasting for a youth channel called Connect. The CRTC also approved 262 category two channels, which do not get exclusive rights to a genre and do not benefit from mandatory carriage. Applications for two pay-per-view and four video-on-demand channels have also been approved. Reasons, terms and conditions for the CRTC's picks will be published in mid-December.