GATINEAU – The CRTC knocked one item off the docket for the next couple of weeks with the approval of Blue Ant Media’s purchase of specialty service Bold from the CBC for $10 million.
Bold’s license renewal (and the CBC’s oft-told problems with the channel’s conditions of license) were to be examined beginning next week during the two-week long hearing into the Corp.’s license renewal but with the sale, that has been removed from the procedure.
Bold, a category A channel formerly called Country Canada, has about 2.6 million subscribers and conditions of license which say it is to focus on rural Canadians. The programming CBC has chosen to place on the channel over the years has caused it to run afoul of the Commission. But this is Blue Ant’s challenge now.
It is widely thought that Blue Ant will take Bold and re-brand it as Cottage Life TV. Blue Ant has a category B digital license for such a channel – and minority ownership of Cottage Life Magazine. The company did agree in its application to the Commission to take ownership of Bold to abide by the current conditions of license.
Now, since bold is an asset of Crown Corp CBC, the final stage of approval is sign off from the federal government (officially, the Governor-in-Council).
