TORONTO – The only all-HDTV broadcaster in the country, High Fidelity HDTV, has added a new partner in merchant bank C.A. Bancorp.
Four-year-old Hi Fi HDTV has offers four channels, Rush HD, Equator HD, Oasis HD and Treasure HD, which are carried on Bell ExpressVu and certain other carriers like Source Cable and SaskTel’s MAX. The company has had some trouble gaining carriage on large cable operators as they are instead holding back slices of bandwidth for existing analog specialty channels that haven’t yet but may soon make the switch to high definition.
The $4 million dollar investment by C.A. Bancorp "strengthens High Fidelity’s position as the leading Canadian all-HD broadcaster, supporting the growth and expansion of the network’s suite of smart, refreshing and beautiful high definition television channels," says the press release.
“We are delighted to have a new financial investor in C.A. Bancorp,” says High Fidelity’s CEO Ken Murphy. “Their financial strength and financial sector expertise will help us take our suite of four exciting all-HD channels to the next level of service. This is wonderful news for the rapidly growing number of HD households in Canada.”
The company also holds eight additional channel license approvals from the CRTC, and two more channel license applications working their way through the regulatory process. It also produces HDTV content.
“We are excited to work with the highly-experienced team at High Fidelity as it continues to grow Canada’s leading full-time 24/7 HDTV broadcaster”, added Mark MacDonald, managing director, C.A. Bancorp, in the press release. “As public demand for greater high definition content grows, and the cable and satellite providers continue to expand their high definition offerings, we see a very favorable outlook for High Fidelity’s growth.”
High Fidelity HDTV launched its first two all-HD channels, Oasis HD and Treasure HD, in March of 2006. That was followed by the launch of two more channels, Rush HD and Equator HD, in September of the same year.
The company was founded in 2003 by Canadian broadcasting veterans Ken Murphy and John Panikkar and has since has formed partnerships with other innovative HDTV producers and broadcasters, chief among them Rainbow Media Holdings, the largest HD content provider and HD broadcaster in the U.S.
C.A. Bancorp Inc. is a publicly traded Canadian merchant bank and asset manager that provides investors with access to a range of private equity and alternative asset class investment opportunities, typically available only to institutional and high-net-worth investors. The Company is focused on investments in small- and middle-capitalization public and private companies, with emphasis on the industrials, real estate, infrastructure and financial services sectors.
