OTTAWA – The CRTC today approved four new national, English-language Category 2 specialty television channels. The new channels include Baseball TV from Rogers (sports), Northern Peaks (adult), eScapes (nature) and The Rural Channel with a focus on agricultural programming. All four channels are required to begin airing within the next three years.
Baseball’s been very good to Rogers
The CRTC has approved an application from Rogers for a national, English-language Category 2 specialty station devoted to the coverage of baseball called Baseball TV.
Rogers is proposing to broadcast live Major League Baseball (MLB) games comprising a maximum of 10% of its programming schedule and to include category 7 drama and comedy among the programming categories from which it planned to draw its programming. Rogers says category 7 programming would be limited to no more than 15% of all programming broadcast during the broadcast week.
Rogers requested that it be permitted to achieve 100% closed captioning of its programming only by its sixth year of operation. The applicant also requested authorization to offer both a standard definition and a high definition (HD) version of Baseball TV.
The commission says it did not receive any interventions in connection with this application.
Look at those Peaks
The CRTC also approved an application for Northern Peaks, a national, English-language Category 2 pay television service that would consist of adult programming.
The applicant, a numbered corporation out of Alberta Ltd., says the service is Canada’s first adult video channel offering significant “Canadian adult content.” The applicant indicated that it would also air the adult versions of Real Productions’ cable television series and produce its own adult movies, events and series.
The commission did not receive any interventions in connection with this application.
Back to nature
eScapes, a national, English-language Category 2 specialty service that plans to offer 24-hours-per-day of high definition, original and Canadian-produced nature and human activity programming to be used as background visuals also gets the nod from the commission.
The applicant, eScapes Television Corporation described the service as including no audio, except the natural sounds of the environments being shown. However, if the service offers any spoken word programming in future, the commission says it will have to provide captioning for 100% of its spoken word programs beginning in its first year of operation.
The commission did not receive any interventions in connection with this application.
Like watching grass grow
Finally, there is The Rural Channel, a channel that’s already in need of a name change before it even airs. The channel, a national, English-language Category 2 specialty service is devoted to serving the interests and needs of individuals and families living outside of major cities in smaller and rural communities across Canada.
The applicant Ag-Com Productions Ltd. says that while the service would be of interest to all rural residents. The service would be primarily dedicated to all aspects of agriculture, with programming ranging from hard news and documentary-style programming to rural lifestyle and recreational programming.
Ag-Com says that no more than 12 hours per broadcast week, based on a 168-hour broadcast week, would be drawn from category 7 (drama and comedy) and that all programming from category 7 would have a strong connection to rural life.
The commission says it received several interventions in support of this application.
