Chinavision was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

television broadcasting company. It was launched in 1984 by Francis Cheung of

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to provide a first pay-TV station for

Chinese language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the ...

viewers in Toronto and

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. The station's content was roughly 90%

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...

and 10%

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

. The station expanded to

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and Calgary, Alberta in 1987 by acquiring Cathay International Television. The station rights were later sold to The Fairchild Group (owned by Happy Valley Investments Limited via Thomas Fung) and Condor (owned by TVB Limited of Hong Kong) after receivership in 1990, to form Fairchild TV in 1993.

Content

Contingent on the application to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Chinavision was required to have minimum of 30% Canadian made programs with the remainder from sources outside of Canada (mainly Hong Kong, China).

Broadcasting time

Chinavision's broadcaster hours were limited to two periods: * 4:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. weekdays * 2:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. on weekends Original broadcast time was from 5pm to 1am daily. Programming in Toronto was replayed in Vancouver and other markets.

Studios

Studios in Toronto were located within the city (160 Duncan Mills Road) and moved after the sale to Fairchild to Richmond Hill, Ontario.

Subscription

Viewers of Chinavision, namely in Toronto area had to obtain a converted box that had to connected to their existing cable boxes to decode signals for the channel. Thus Chinavision was only available to cable subscribers only. In 1991 Chinavision had about 110,000 subscribers across Canada (Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary).

China influence in Chinavision

Chinavision was involved in an investigation by CSIS on their speculations of connections to Chinese authorities trying to influence media after the

Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

Sale

After 1990 Chinavision was in facing financial difficulties and was sought out by two buyers, but eventually sold to Fairchild Group in 1993, who transformed the channel to

Fairchild TV Fairchild TV or FTV is a Canadian Cantonese language exempt specialty channel."Waging a war over a large, wealthy, educated audience ; Fairchild TV and CFMT are battling it out to deliver the news to Canada's Chinese community". ''Toronto Star'' ...

Former staff and Others Connected with Chinavision

A number of

TVB Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) is a television broadcasting company based in Hong Kong SAR. The Company operates five free-to-air terrestrial television channels in Hong Kong, with TVB Jade as its main Cantonese language service, and ...

staff and other

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

personalities were hired or worked with the station from 1984 to 1990s: * Louise Li - Hong Kong actress was newspresenter in

in the 1980s (1986-1989) * Lau Dan - Hong Kong actor who briefly worked for the station when his family moved to Canada (son Harwick Lau attended school in Toronto until 1994) * Ivan Ho - Hong Kong actor who briefly worked for the station * Teresa Cheung, Hong Kong socialite, was cultural ambassador for the channel and daughter of the owner Francis Cheung * Jean Lumb, corporate director; Toronto restaurateur and community activist

References

{{reflist

External links

CRTC Decision in granting license to Fairchild

List of on air and other staff of Chinavision
Chinese-language mass media in Canada Chinese-language television Defunct broadcasting companies of Canada Television channels and stations established in 1984