GATINEAU and TORONTO – The CRTC officially revoked, at Bell Media’s request, the broadcasting licences of Book Television and Fashion Television Channel on Thursday.
Both will cease operations at 11:59 p.m. on February 21.
Fashion Television Channel and Book Television were launched in 2000 by CHUM Ltd. at a time when specialty television was exploding in Canada and around the world. Book TV was a place to, well, learn about the written word and featured author and broadcaster Daniel Richler as a host and editor in chief when it launched.
Fashion Television Channel built on the extraordinary international success of the CHUM Television show FashionTelevision, hosted by Jeanne Beker which at its peak, aired in dozens of countries around the world during its 27-year run which ended in 2012.
The channels became property of CTVglobemedia (later Bell Media) when the company purchased CHUM in 2007.
The two channels have not been well watched for a number of years and both had long since strayed from the genres they once cultivated, airing only old re-runs. Book Television’s schedule now is mostly Matlock and JAG episodes all day long with some newer repeated fare such as Bell Media content Cardinal and Amazing Race Canada in prime time hours. Fashion’s schedule features strips of Comedy Now! and Cash Cab with some old Amazing Race Canadas.
It’s likely most subscribers were unaware they had access to the moribund channels which were usually part of some sort of “lifestyle” bundle with pay-TV operators.
In the most recent filings with the CRTC, Book counted 409,000 subscribers as of August 31, 2019, brought in revenue of $1.56 million and earned a pre-tax profit of $615,000. It reported no employees working for the brand.
As for Fashion, it earned $853,000 in revenue in the 2019 broadcast year, with no employees, and made $559,000 in pre-tax profit on 282,600 subscribers.
Neither channel reported any expenditures on Canadian programming.
