Ici Explora (stylized as ICI Explora) is 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 ...

French language specialty channel owned by the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...

(known in French as Société Radio-Canada) that focuses on science, environment, nature, and health programming.

History

On February 21, 2011, the CBC was granted approval by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to launch a television channel called ''Sens'', described as "a national, French-language Category 2 specialty programming undertaking that offers programming devoted to scientific discoveries, the environment, nature and human health." The name Sens was an abbreviation consisting of the first letter of each word of the French spelling of each of the channel's four main topics: science, environment, nature, and health (science, environnement, nature, and santé).Radio-Canada repousse la mise en ondes
Canoe.ca 2011-11-03 The channel was set to launch as Explora on December 1, 2011. However, after some delays, on March 5, 2012, CBC announced that the channel would be launched on March 28, 2012. The decision to change the channel's name was due to management at the CBC thinking the name Sens would cause confusion among viewers. Although specifics regarding what viewers could confuse the channel with have not been named public, presumably, at least one of the dangers could be viewers confusing the channel as being associated with the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

club, the

Ottawa Senators The Ottawa Senators (french: Sénateurs d'Ottawa), officially the Ottawa Senators Hockey Club and colloquially known as the Sens, are a professional ice hockey team based in Ottawa. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a membe ...

, which are often referred to as "the Sens", and who was also associated with a part-time pay-per-view channel called Sens TV, which broadcast live Senators' hockey games in its "home market". The channel was launched on March 28 as planned at 6:00pm ETRadio-Canada lance Explora
La Presse 2012-03-22 in both

standard Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...

and high definition;

Vidéotron Vidéotron is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Owned by Quebecor, it primarily ...

being the first carrier to distribute the channel. On December 10, 2013, the network was re-branded to its current name as part of a plan to unify CBC's French-language outlets around a single brand.

References

External links

* {{Public broadcasting in Canada Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television networks Digital cable television networks in Canada French-language television networks in Canada Television channels and stations established in 2012