BBC Canada was a Canadian English language

specialty channel A specialty channel (also known in the United States as a cable channel or cable network) can be a commercial broadcasting or non-commercial television channel which consists of television programming focused on a single genre, subject or targete ...

that mostly broadcast television series originally produced by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, the public-service broadcaster of the United Kingdom. The channel was owned by

Corus Entertainment Corus Entertainment Inc. (often simply known as Corus) is a Canadian mass media and television production company. The company was founded in 1987 as Shaw Radio Ltd. as a subsidiary of Shaw Communications and was spun-off from Shaw in 1999. It h ...

(80% & managing partner) and

BBC Studios BBC Studios Limited is a British content company. It is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC that was formed in April 2018 through the merger of the BBC's commercial production arm and the BBC's commercial international distribution arm, BBC Wor ...

(20%).

History

Alliance Atlantis Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. (commonly known as Alliance Atlantis) was a Canadian media company that operated primarily as a specialty service operator in Canada. Alliance Atlantis also had offices in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, Los ...

(AAC) was granted a broadcast licence for a Category 2 speciality service covering "entertainment, drama and documentary programming". BBC Canada, by the

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission 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 ...

(CRTC) in November 2000. Alliance also received licenses for channels including

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

, IFC, and The Health Network, launched as Discovery Health. The channel was launched on 7 September 2001 as a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

between AAC and BBC Worldwide. To promote the launch of BBC Canada's 2007 fall season, a 16-page British-style tabloid insert called the ''BBC Telly'' was published in the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands (Torstar), Daily News Brands division. ...

''. Toronto-based Pilot PMR created the campaign. On 28 January 2008, a

between

Canwest Canwest Global Communications Corporation, which operated under the corporate name Canwest, was a major Canadian media conglomerate based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with its head offices at Canwest Place (now called 201 Portage). It held radio, ...

and

Goldman Sachs Capital Partners Goldman Sachs Alternatives is the alternative investment arm of Goldman Sachs, focused on private equity, private credit, secondaries, real estate, infrastructure, and growth equity investments globally. The group, which is based in New York ...

known as CW Media bought Alliance Atlantis and gained AAC's interest in BBC Canada. On 27 October 2010, the channel's ownership changed once again as

Shaw Communications Shaw Communications Inc. was a Telecommunications in Canada, Canadian telecommunication, telecommunications company which provided telephone, Internet, television, and mobile services. The company was founded in 1966 as Capital Cable Televisio ...

gained control of BBC Canada as a result of its acquisition of Canwest and Goldman Sachs' interest in CW Media. On 13 May 2011, BBC Canada was separated from the now-defunct children's channel BBC Kids due to its ownership changing hands to

Knowledge Network Knowledge Network, also branded as British Columbia's Knowledge Network and K:, is a Canadian publicly funded educational cable television network serving the province of British Columbia. It is owned by the Knowledge Network Corporation, a Crow ...

. On 1 April 2016, Shaw Media was sold to

. BBC Canada also earned several sister networks to go with the existing ones. In a notice to subscribers posted in early November 2020, Corus sister company

Shaw Direct Shaw Direct G.P. is a direct broadcast satellite television distributor in Canada and a subsidiary of the telecommunications company Rogers Communications. As of 2010, Shaw Direct had over 900,000 subscribers. It broadcasts on Ku band from two ...

indicated that the channel would be shutting down on 31 December 2020. In March 2021,

Blue Ant Media Blue Ant Media Inc. is a Canadian broadcasting and media company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. The company was founded by Michael MacMillan and formed in 2011 following the acquisition of Glassbox Television. Its name was chosen in reference ...

, a company owned by former Alliance Atlantis executive Michael MacMillan which already owns the Canadian version of BBC Earth, announced that its

HIFI High fidelity (hi-fi or, rarely, HiFi) is the high-quality reproduction of sound. It is popular with audiophiles and home audio enthusiasts. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has inaudible noise and distortion, and a flat (neutral, uncolored) f ...

channel would be rebranded as a Canadian version of the BBC's international entertainment channel brand BBC First on March 16. Several programs that had been carried by BBC Canada prior to its closure, including '' Top Gear'' and ''

Antiques Roadshow ''Antiques Roadshow'' is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom (and occasionally in other countries) to appraise antiques brought in by local people ( ...

'', were picked up by BBC First.

Programming

While BBC Canada was part-owned by the BBC, not all of the BBC's programmes aired on BBC Canada. In general, while BBC Worldwide and its affiliated operations have a "first look" at the corporation's output, this right only applies so long as BBC Worldwide pays no less than what the BBC Commercial Agency, which is at

arm's length The arm's length principle (ALP) is the condition or the fact that the parties of a transaction are independent and on an equal footing. Such a transaction is known as an "arm's-length transaction". It is used specifically in contract law to ar ...

, judges to be a particular property's value. Furthermore, while BBC Canada served a similar purpose to the

BBC America BBC America is an American basic cable network that is owned by AMC Networks. The channel primarily airs sci-fi and action series and films, as well as selected programs from the BBC (such as its nature documentary series). Unlike the BBC's ...

channel available in the United States, there are also significant differences between the programming rights owned by the two channels. This meant that much of the BBC's output (and, for that matter, BBC America's original programming) aired on other Canadian channels which have either co-produced the programmes or simply bid more for the Canadian broadcast rights. Conversely, many of the British series that did air on the channel are not sourced from the BBC, with some having originally been produced by or aired on other British channels, such as the privately owned ITV or the independent public-service broadcaster

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

. Despite its British focus, BBC Canada was licensed as a Canadian channel and was not exempt from the CRTC's broadcasting regulations that required it to carry a quota of

Canadian content Canadian content (abbreviated CanCon, cancon or can-con; ) refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) requirements, derived from the Broadcasting Act of Canada, that radio and television broadcasters (inclu ...

. This meant that in addition to British programmes, it also broadcast a number of Canadian series, which according to the channel's licence were required to "explore or einformed by Canada's relationship to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth".Decision CRTC 2000-484
, CRTC, 24 November 2000 Canadian programmes that aired on the channel included repeats of '' Disaster DIY'' and '' Holmes Inspection''. In the early 2010s, the channel began airing American series featuring British personalities, such as the American version of the

Gordon Ramsay Gordon James Ramsay (; born ) is a British celebrity chef, restaurateur, television presenter, and writer. His restaurant group, List of restaurants owned or operated by Gordon Ramsay, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, was founded in 1997 and has ...

programme '' Kitchen Nightmares'' (it has also in the past carried the British parent series ''

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares ''Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares'' is a television programme featuring British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay first broadcast on Channel 4 in 2004. In each episode, Ramsay visits a failing restaurant and acts as a troubleshooter to help improve t ...

''), and repeat airings of the American dramas ''

House A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air c ...

'' and '' Elementary'' (each of which has a British actor in the lead role). Many of the channel's programmes, whether British, American or Canadian, were shared with other Corus Entertainment channels such as the

Global Television Network The Global Television Network (more commonly called Global, or occasionally Global TV) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English language, English-language terrestrial television, terrestrial television network. It is currently Canada's se ...

, Showcase, HGTV Canada and Food Network Canada. BBC Canada did not ordinarily carry

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

programming, as the

BBC World News BBC News is an international English-language pay television channel owned by BBC Global News Ltd. – a subsidiary of BBC Studios – and operated by the BBC News division of the BBC. The network carries news bulletins, documentaries, an ...

channel is also widely available in Canada, and BBC News also has a long-standing content-sharing agreement with the

CBC CBC may refer to: Media * Cadena Baja California or Grupo Cadena, a radio and television broadcaster in Mexico * Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's radio and television public broadcaster ** CBC Television ** CBC Radio One ** CBC Music ** ...

. On the rare occasions that BBC Canada did carry news coverage, coverage may have been produced by Corus-owned

Global News Global News is the news and Current affairs (news format), current affairs division of the Canadian Global Television Network. The network is owned by Corus Entertainment, which oversees all of the network's national news programming as well as ...

instead of the BBC, such as with the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

BBC Canada HD

In October 2016, Corus Entertainment launched BBC Canada HD, a

1080i In high-definition television (HDTV) and video display technology, 1080i is a video display format with 1080 lines of vertical resolution and Interlaced video, interlaced scanning method. This format was once a standard in HDTV. It was particular ...

high definition simulcast of the

standard definition Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a similar resolution to the ...

feed. The HD feed was only available on Telus Optik TV and

. The HD simulcast was shut down on 31 December 2020.

Related properties

Apart from the television channel, BBC Worldwide directly operates a BBC Canada Shop website which sells merchandise related to British television series such as '' Top Gear'', '' Little Britain'' and ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

''.

References

External links