NEW SPECIALTY CHANNELS BUILD AWARENESS
By Adnews Staff
The four new specialty channels that will launch in September launched a campaign earlier this month to promote themselves. The campaign uses print, TV and the Internet. The print ads were created by SMW Advertising of Toronto, while the TV ads were created by the owners of each channel. The new channels are: Alliance Broadcasting's History Channel, Baton Broadcasting's Comedy Network, CTV Television Network's all-news channel, N! and the Teletoon animation channel, which is owned by Nelvana of Toronto and Cinar Films of Montreal. When the channels are launched, cable subscribers will receive them for free for a three-month trial period. Talks between Canadian cable TV operators and the four new English-language special channels are at a stalemate because of money. The new specialty channels says consumers would pay another $2.50 a month for the services, but cable operators said $2 should be the most consumers pay. Cable companies and special channels want to avoid the scandal that followed the launch of specialty channels in 1995. Rogers Communications subscribers were angry that the company used negative option billing and repackaged the channels so subscribers could not keep what they had.