TORONTO — Corus Entertainment today confirmed to Cartt.ca that it is not renewing its licensing deal with BBC to operate the BBC Canada channel, which will no longer be available as of January 1, 2021.
This is the only BBC channel to which Corus owns the licensing rights for Canada, and therefore no other BBC-branded channels are affected by this news.
According to the last financial information Corus filed with the CRTC, as of August 31, 2019, the BBC Canada channel had approximately 2.4 million subscribers, which was a 3.55% decrease from a year earlier. In 2015, its number of subscribers was almost 2.7 million.
In recent years, BBC Canada has seen its total revenue drop from almost $11.3 million in 2016 to $7.8 million in 2019, according to Corus’ financial filings to the CRTC.
In an emailed statement to Cartt.ca, a Corus spokesperson said the company regularly reviews its portfolio of channels to ensure it aligns with the company’s strategic direction.
“As part of that review, and in consultation with our partners BBC Studios, we have mutually decided not to renew the agreements for the BBC Canada channel. The channel will no longer be available as of December 31, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. ET. There are no immediate plans to sunset or rebrand any of our other channels. However, we are constantly reviewing our portfolio of channels to ensure they align with our overall business strategy,” wrote the Corus spokesperson.
Pictured is a screen cap of the message Shaw Direct is showing its customers about the channel’s sunset.
