Pelmorex Corp. is a Canadian weather information and media company. Based in

Oakville, Ontario Oakville is a town and List of municipalities in Ontario#Lower-tier municipalities, lower-tier municipality in Regional Municipality of Halton, Halton Region, Ontario, Canada. Generally seen as a commuter suburb of Toronto, it is located on Lake ...

, it is the owner of the Canadian specialty channels

The Weather Network The Weather Network (TWN) is a Canadian English-language discretionary weather information specialty channel available in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. It delivers weather information on television, digital platforms (respon ...

(English) and

MétéoMédia MétéoMédia is a Canadian French-language weather information specialty channel and web site owned by Pelmorex. MétéoMédia primarily serves viewers in Quebec, although some cable TV systems in Ontario and New Brunswick carry the channel as w ...

(French), and their associated digital properties. Founded in 1989, "Pelmorex" is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

derived from the name of the company's chairman and controlling shareholder, Pierre L. Morrissette.

History

Pelmorex Corp. was established in 1989 and acquired The Weather Network and MeteoMedia shortly after. The brand grew in Canada and in 1996,

The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel ...

in the United States was brought on board as a strategic minority shareholder. In the early 1990s, the company owned the

Pelmorex Radio Network The Pelmorex Radio Network was a system of Canada, Canadian radio stations in Northern Ontario, owned and operated by Pelmorex. History In 1989, Pierre Morrissette founded his own communications company, Pelmorex Media Inc., and acquired several ...

stations in

Northern Ontario Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on p ...

. The company sold the stations in 1998 and 1999, to

Telemedia Telemedia was a Canadian media company, which had holdings in radio, television and magazine publishing. The company was launched in 1968 by Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien, when he purchased CKAC in Montreal from Power Corporation of Canada. CKAC r ...

and

Haliburton Broadcasting Group The Haliburton Broadcasting Group was a Canadian group of FM radio stations, located primarily in smaller markets in Ontario. The company was purchased by Vista Broadcast Group in 2012.Ontario Ministry of Transportation The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) is the provincial ministry of the Government of Ontario that is responsible for transport infrastructure and related law in Ontario, Canada. The ministry traces its roots back over a century to the 1890s, wh ...

Hydro One Hydro One Limited is an Electric power transmission, electricity transmission and distribution Electric utility, utility serving the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. Hydro One traces its history to the early 2 ...

and

Bruce Nuclear Generating Station Bruce Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power station located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada. It occupies 932 ha (2300 acres) of land. The facility derives its name from Bruce Township, Ontario, Bruce Township, the ...

. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. In 2012, Pelmorex acquired the Spanish weather website eltiempo.es, where it focused on bolstering its digital and marketing operations, and hiring prominent local personality José Antonio Maldonado. It also acquired the traffic information provider

Beat the Traffic Beat the Traffic was a provider of vehicle traffic reporting solutions for broadcast media and consumers. With a focus on daily commuters, Beat the Traffic was founded in 2001 by former CEO Andre Gueziec. On September 10, 2012, Pelmorex announced ...

. In 2013, Ron Close became the new president and CEO of the company. The company also began to plot out further expansion in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, as well as optimization of digital advertising delivery based on weather data. In 2015, Pelmorex bought out The Weather Channel's 49% stake in the company."The Weather Channel Sells Stake in Pelmorex Media"
''Broadcaster'', December 22, 2015.

Public alerting

In 2001, Pelmorex first proposed that an

emergency population warning An emergency population warning, or public warning system is a method where by local, regional, or national authorities can contact or notify members of the public to warn them of an impending emergency. These warnings may be necessary for a numbe ...

system, "All Channel Alert", be implemented by all television providers, using proprietary Pelmorex hardware and funded primarily via an increase in carriage fees for The Weather Network/MétéoMédia. The

CRTC The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; ) is a public organization in Canada tasked with the mandate as a regulatory agency tribunal for various electronic communications, covering broadcasting and telecommunic ...

rejected the proposal, citing the need to consult with the industry over design, costs, and governance of the system. In 2010, Pelmorex established a "national aggregator and distributor" (NAAD) of localized emergency alert messages compliant with the

Common Alerting Protocol The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is an XML-based data format for exchanging public warnings and emergencies between alerting technologies. CAP allows a warning message to be consistently disseminated simultaneously over many warning systems to m ...

as a condition of a request for

must-carry In cable television, many governments, including the ones of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, apply a must-carry regulation stating that forces a cable TV provider to carry the public interest programming, like locally licensed te ...

status for the two channels. It is governed by representatives of the broadcasting industry, the federal government, members of the Senior Officials Responsible for Emergency Management (SOREM), and the Canadian Association for Public Alerting and Notification. In 2011, the CRTC renewed the must-carry status, under the condition that Pelmorex allow all federal, provincial and territorial emergency management officials to have access to the system, that it commit at least $1 million per-year on public awareness campaigns, and that it develop "broadcast-intrusive" alerts. On August 29, 2014, the CRTC ruled that all over-the-air television channels, radio stations, and television providers must begin relaying emergency messages relayed via NAAD beginning March 31, 2015; Pelmorex markets this under the public-facing brand "Alert Ready" (French: ''En Alerte''). Beginning April 2018, emergency alerts also became mandatory on mobile phones.

References

{{Pelmorex Communications Mass media companies established in 1989 Canadian companies established in 1989 1989 establishments in Ontario 1989 mergers and acquisitions 2006 mergers and acquisitions 2012 mergers and acquisitions Companies based in Oakville, Ontario Television broadcasting companies of Canada