Classicomm was a small cable provider in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

serving communities in southern

York Region The Regional Municipality of York, also called York Region, is a regional municipality in Southern Ontario, Canada, between Lake Simcoe and Toronto. The region was established after the passing of then Bill 102, An Act to Establish The Regional M ...

from its offices in Richmond Hill,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

."Shaw adds cable turf; Deal could leave Metro area with just two cable companies". ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...

'', July 29, 1994. Classicomm, or Classic Communications Ltd, was founded in the late 1960s by John O. Graham and Stewart H. Coxford, who were granted a cable television (

CATV Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadc ...

) licence by the CRTC for Richmond Hill and several other small communities north of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

. By the 1980s the cable system had acquired additional licences, and soon covered a geographic area taking in most of southern York Region. With

Steeles Avenue Steeles Avenue is an east–west street that forms the northern city limit of Toronto and the southern limit of York Region in Ontario, Canada. It stretches across the western and central Greater Toronto Area from Appleby Line in Milton in th ...

as its southerly service boundary, the cable system spanned the width of York Region from

Markham Markham may refer to: It may also refer to brand of of clothing which originates from South Africa which saw it's establishment in 1873. Biology * Markham's storm-petrel (''Oceanodroma markhami''), a seabird species found in Chile and Colombia * ...

in the east to Woodbridge in the west. Its coverage area stretched north to include communities such as Stouffville, King City,

Kleinburg Kleinburg is an unincorporated village in the city of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. It is home to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, an art gallery with a focus on the Group of Seven, and the Kortright Centre for Conservation. In 2001, the villag ...

and Gormley. Southern York Region experienced tremendous growth beginning around 1982. During the period of 1986–90 Classicomm was connecting up to 10,000 new subscribers each year, making it the fastest growing cable system of its day. In 1984, the company applied to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for permission to launch a classified advertising channel on the service, but the application was denied on the basis that cable companies were not permitted to compete with radio or television broadcasters for advertising revenue. The regulation was changed in 1986 to permit advertising channels. It was also one of the first cable companies in Canada to offer X*Press X*Change, an early foray into electronic news delivery. The company was sold in 1995 to Shaw Communications of Calgary, for a purchase price of $240 million."Shaw wins Richmond Hill cable". ''

'', July 15, 1995. When the transaction was first announced in 1994, Classicomm had 102,000 subscribers; when it was finalized the following year, the company had 105,000 subscribers. Along with Shaw's simultaneous acquisition of Trillium Cable, the deal helped to make Shaw the second-largest cable company in Canada."Ontario cable deal keeps Shaw in big leagues; Shaw on the move". '' Edmonton Journal'', July 30, 1994. A few years later, Rogers Cable of Toronto and Shaw Cable rationalized their cable holdings in Canada, with Shaw consolidating in western Canada and Rogers in central and eastern Canada. The Classicomm service area is now entirely part of Rogers Cable.

References

{{Rogers Communications Defunct cable and DBS companies of Canada Shaw Communications