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September 16, 2020 10:13 am  #1


The Would-Be Canadian Cable Channels You Never Got To See

The Fox News story had a link to an old archived CRTC page that outlined some of the approved cable channels in this country that were given permission to start up way back in 2003.
 
Most of them never made it to air, but in looking at the list, I can only wonder what their programming might have been and what those behind the proposed services were thinking.
 
(They might not have been thinking at all – a friend of mine who was at City TV told me that management made a whole bunch of pie-in-the-sky proposals to the CRTC when cable was first expanding its offerings here, expecting to get maybe one or two of them. Instead, they wound up with what became CP24, Space - now CTV’s SciFi Channel - Book TV and a whole lot more. Ready or not, they put them all on the air in one form or another, but were privately stunned that so many were sanctioned.)
 
But back to the list. In 2003, these services were among those given extensions to get up and running by 2004. Needless to say, none of the ones outlined below ever did. You can only imagine the kind of shows that would have been carried.
 
The Singles Channel
Corporate TV
The Nerd Network
The Poetry Channel
The Jazz Channel (Corus)
Soap Opera TV (CTV)
The Baseball Channel (Global)
The Auction Channel (Global)
Passion Television
 
And that's just a partial list. Would any of these have worked? We’ll never know because they never saw the light of day, which really isn’t that unusual when it comes to would-be cable stations. Many are approved but only a few actually make it onto your tiers.

But I admit I’d like to have seen how the Poetry Channel would have filled up 24 hours a day of TV. Perhaps changing prime time into rhyme time?
   
CRTC List Of Approved Cable Channels 2003

 

September 16, 2020 2:18 pm  #2


Re: The Would-Be Canadian Cable Channels You Never Got To See

one theory at the time was to secure licences - any licence - then worry about how to actually program it later.  The value was in holding the paper, not ad futures.  seems quaint now with hundreds of channels and still nothing on.  or worse, the same damn show at the same time on five or six different outlets!

 

September 16, 2020 6:34 pm  #3


Re: The Would-Be Canadian Cable Channels You Never Got To See

The Nerd Network would probably be geared to computers and perhaps sci-fi reruns, which are stereotypical nerd characteristics. The US had ZDTV and another network around that time.

The Auction Channel may have worked