M3 was a Canadian English language
Category A cable
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
and
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...
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 targeted ...
owned by
Bell Media
Bell Media Inc. ( French: ) is a Canadian company formed by the amalgamation of several companies.
Establishment (2011–13)
On December 9, 2011, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan announced the sale of its majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports ...
. Established in 1998 as MuchMoreMusic, the network began as a spin-off of the youth-oriented
MuchMusic
Much (an abbreviation for its full name MuchMusic) is a Canadian English language specialty channel owned by BCE Inc. through its Bell Media subsidiary that airs programming aimed at teenagers and young adults.
MuchMusic launched on August 31 ...
, targeting an older demographic with
adult contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...
and
classic
A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank – something that exemplifies its class. The word can be an adjective (a ''c ...
music video
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...
s, along with music news programs, concert specials, and pop culture programming (usually sourced from the U.S. network
VH1, which shared a similar positioning).
Under Bell ownership and its final branding as M3, and following the lead of its parent network, the channel adopted a general entertainment format and largely phased out its remaining music programming. On September 1, 2016, M3 was shut down and replaced under its license and most channel allotments by
Gusto.
History
In June 1993, the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...
(CRTC) began accepting licence applications for new Canadian
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 targeted ...
s
for the first time since 1987.
On August 31, 1993, MuchMusic and
CITY-TV
CITY-DT (channel 57) is a television station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, serving as the flagship station of the Citytv network. It is owned and operated by network parent Rogers Sports & Media alongside Omni Television outlets CFMT-DT (chan ...
co-founder
Moses Znaimer
Moses Znaimer (; born 1942) is a Tajik-born Canadian media executive of jewish descent. He is the co-founder and former head of Citytv, the first independent television station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the current head of ZoomerMedia. ...
announced on-air a proposal by
CHUM Limited
CHUM Limited was a Canadian media company based in Toronto, Ontario in operation from 1945 to 2007. The company was founded in 1945 as York Broadcasters Limited when it launched CHUM-AM 1050 but was acquired by salesman Allan Waters in 1954. CHU ...
to launch a specialty channel called MuchMoreMusic as an adult music/lifestyle channel, quoted as offering music more "familiar, tuneful,
ndmelodic" for an audience who "could do with a little less rock and rap and metal".
This followed CHUM's earlier application for a
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
channel, MuchCountry. "
Melodic pop
A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combinati ...
,
soft rock
Soft rock is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in Southern California and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, melodic songs with big, lush productions. S ...
,
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
,
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
and
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
" were to be some of the genres played by MuchMoreMusic; according to CHUM, the new channel would be able to provide such music to the "sizable" portion of its existing audience who enjoyed such softer music but could not find it reliably on MuchMusic.
![Much More Music Logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Much_More_Music_Logo.svg)
At a subsequent February 1994 public hearing, the CRTC reviewed a total of seven applications for music channels, comprising five country music channels, MuchMoreMusic, and CHUM's MusiquExtra, which was to be a French-language adult contemporary counterpart.
In a
Canadian Press
The Canadian Press (CP; french: La Presse canadienne, ) is a Canadian national news agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Established in 1917 as a vehicle for the time's Canadian newspapers to exchange news and information, The Canadian Pre ...
article, commissioner Adrian Burns noted concerns with giving one operator control of multiple music channels; Znaimer, meanwhile, claimed that there was no room for more than one operator of music channels in Canada.
In June, the MuchMoreMusic application was denied by the Commission, as well as the MuchCountry and MusiquExtra proposals; out of the seven, the only application approved was
Maclean-Hunter Maclean-Hunter (M-H) was a Canadian communications company, which had diversified holdings in radio, television, magazines, newspapers and cable television distribution.
History
The company began in 1887, when brothers John Bayne Maclean and Hu ...
and
Rawlco Communications
Rawlco Radio Ltd. is a media company based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. The company is the sole proprietor of seven radio stations in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The Rawlco Radio Corporate Office is just south of Downtown Sas ...
' The Country Network (which launched as New Country Network, and later became
CMTSubsequently, the CRTC was criticized for passing only 10 of the 48 total applications.
In January 1996, the next round of licensing began, drawing another 44 applications; CHUM submitted nine of these, including MuchMoreMusic and the French-language adult contemporary channel, now called
MusiMax
Max is a Canadian French language specialty channel owned by Remstar Media Group, a division of Remstar. The channel primarily broadcasts entertainment programming, focusing on scripted television series and films.
Established in 1997 as MusiMax ...
(formerly ''MusicMax'').
The new application, delivered by MuchMusic programmer
Denise Donlon
Denise Anne Donlon, (born 22 February 1956) is a Canadian business executive, television producer, author, public speaker, host, and member of the Order of Canada.
Born in Toronto, Ontario, she joined MuchMusic in 1985 as a host and producer of ...
on May 8, 1996, incorporated video testimonials by a number of Canadian musicians, including
Anne Murray
Morna Anne Murray (born June 20, 1945) is a retired Canadian singer. Her albums, consisting primarily of pop, country, and adult contemporary music, have sold over 55 million copies worldwide during her over 40-year career.
Murray was the fir ...
,
Bruce Cockburn
Bruce Douglas Cockburn ( ; born May 27, 1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist. His song styles range from folk to jazz-influenced rock and his lyrics cover a broad range of topics including human rights, environmental issues, po ...
,
Burton Cummings
Burton Lorne Cummings (born December 31, 1947) is a Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known for leading The Guess Who during that band's most successful period from 1965 to 1975, and for a lengthy solo career.
Cummings has ...
,
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion ( ; born 30 March 1968) is a Canadian singer. Noted for her powerful and technically skilled vocals, Dion is the best-selling Canadian recording artist, and the best-selling French-language artist of all time. Her ...
,
David Foster
David Walter Foster (born November 1, 1949) is a Canadian musician, composer, arranger, record producer and music executive who chaired Verve Records from 2012 to 2016. He has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. His music career spans mor ...
,
Lawrence Gowan
Lawrence Henry Gowan (born 22 November 1956) is a Scottish born Canadian singer and keyboardist. He was born in Glasgow and raised in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, Ontario. Gowan has been both a solo artist and lead vocalist and keyboard ...
,
Dan Hill
Daniel Grafton Hill IV (born 3 June 1954) is a Canadian pop singer and songwriter. He had two major international hits with his songs "Sometimes When We Touch" and "Can't We Try", a duet with Vonda Shepard, as well as a number of other charting ...
and
Marc Jordan Marc or MARC may refer to:
People
* Marc (given name), people with the first name
* Marc (surname), people with the family name
Acronyms
* MARC standards, a data format used for library cataloging,
* MARC Train, a regional commuter rail system of ...
, attesting to the need for the channel; Donlon conceded, in a Canadian Press article, that a number of Canadian musicians were no longer filming music videos because MuchMusic was not able to accommodate every music genre equally.
On the same day, CHUM also made pitches for
Canadian Learning Television
Oprah Winfrey Network, more commonly shortened to OWN, is a Canadian English language discretionary service channel owned by Corus Entertainment. The channel was launched in September 1, 1999 as Canadian Learning Television (CLT) by Learning and ...
and Computer Access, a later rejected computer education channel.
MuchMoreMusic was licensed by the CRTC in 1996 (as well as some of CHUM's other proposals rejected in 1994, including
CablePulse24,
Space
Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...
, and Musimax); the channel was launched on October 5, 1998 under the ownership of CHUM Limited.
![MuchMoreTV](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/MuchMoreTV.svg)
In January 1999, ''
Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
'' critic
John Doyle commented on the channel's invariant hosting at the time, remarking that it "appears to be staffed by one person only, Jana Lynne White. The woman does everything — interviews, running down the appalling video chart, promos, everything except come to your house and turn on the TV for you."
The channel's early lineup also included the MuchMusic program ''ClipTrip'', which was moved to MuchMoreMusic, along with its host Diego Fuentes, the winner of MuchMusic's 1995 VJ search. In May 2000,
Bill Welychka
Bill Welychka (born in Welland, Ontario) is a Canadians, Canadian television personality.
Welychka joined CHUM Limited in 1988 as a video editor for MuchMusic. In 1992, he became a VJ (media personality), VJ for the channel, staying with Much for ...
also transferred from MuchMusic,
to host ''Freshly Pressed'' and later ''The Loop''. In April 2000, full-time staff and programming was expanded, including daytime "information segments". Studio space, at 299 Queen Street West, was shared with MuchMusic until May 2000, when it was moved to the fourth floor of the building.
In September 2003, MuchMoreMusic launched a sister digital network,
MuchMoreRetro, which focuses exclusively on classic music videos.
On June 22, 2007, CTVglobemedia gained control of MuchMoreMusic as a result of a takeover of CHUM Limited. On March 31, 2009, MuchMoreMusic was relaunched with a new on-air format and subsequently was renamed ''MuchMore''. The changeover took effect at 6:00 a.m.
Eastern Time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small port ...
, with the first edition of the newly branded morning video flow series ''Juiced!'' Ownership changed hands once again when
Bell Canada
Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in t ...
gained 100% control of CTVglobemedia's assets, including MuchMore, resulting in MuchMore being taken over by
Bell Media
Bell Media Inc. ( French: ) is a Canadian company formed by the amalgamation of several companies.
Establishment (2011–13)
On December 9, 2011, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan announced the sale of its majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports ...
on April 1, 2011.
As M3
On September 19, 2013, Bell announced that MuchMore would be relaunched as M3 on September 30, shifting towards an entertainment-oriented "
superstation
''Superstation'' (alternatively rendered as "super station" or informally as "SuperStation") is a term in North American broadcasting that has several meanings. Commonly, a "superstation" is a form of distant signal, a terrestrial television, br ...
" format with a focus on newly-acquired dramas and comedies alongside music programming. Unlike MuchMore, which was marketed as a spin-off of MuchMusic, M3 was marketed as a separate brand to quell concerns over viewers incorrectly suggesting that the network was catered towards a youth demographic due to its similar name. A
high definition feed was also launched.
After the relaunch, MuchMoreRetro was rebranded as
MuchRetro
Stingray Retro is a Canadian English language discretionary specialty channel owned by the Stingray Group. The channel broadcasts music videos mainly from the 1970s to the early 2010s, with some music videos from the 1960s being played occasional ...
, aligning the channel with the Much brand. The ''MuchMore Countdown'' became the ''M3 Countdown'' and was relaunched with a new format on January 18, 2014. It was the last remaining original music-related program on the network. ''Juiced'' was cancelled following the rebrand and ''M3Top20.ca'' (formerly known as ''MMMTop20.ca'' and, later, ''MMTop20.ca''), a viewer-voted countdown show, was removed from the schedule in the spring of 2014.
On September 7, 2014, M3 debuted a new countdown show called the ''Retro 30''. Replacing the ''M3 Countdown'', ''Retro 30'' focuses on "the biggest news, events and artists of a specific day of a year".
M3 IS GOING BACK IN TIME WITH RETRO 30!
''M3 News'', Wednesday, September 3, 2014. Following its introduction, the network began adding more retro videos into its rotation. In January 2015, M3 debuted a new country music block: the ''M3 Country Brunch''. ''Retro 30'' was cancelled in 2015 and the ''Country Brunch'' block was later removed from the schedule.
On September 1, 2016, M3 was replaced on its CRTC license and channel allotments by Gusto, a food and lifestyle-oriented network. A prior incarnation of the network was operated by Knight Enterprises
Knight Enterprises is an independent television production and broadcasting company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Since it began in May 1996, Knight Enterprises has produced more than 400 half hours of television. Knight Enterprises is best ...
under a Category B license; the company sold the Canadian rights to the Gusto brand and programming to Bell Media, and the channel was taken over by Bell Media via M3's license.
Programming
Programming on M3 primarily consisted of dramas, sitcoms, reality shows, and theatrically-released films. M3 often carried same-week encores of programming aired on CTV and CTV Two
CTV 2 is a Canadian English-language television system owned by the Bell Media subsidiary of BCE Inc. The system consists of four terrestrial owned-and-operated television stations (O&Os) in Ontario, one in British Columbia and two regional ...
, as well as off-network repeats of shows that aired on other Bell Media-owned channels.
Music videos were broadcast from 6:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m ET on weekdays, and 6:00 a.m to 10:00 a.m ET on weekends. Originally, the channel's music content was aligned towards lighter genres of music. Under the ''MuchMore'' branding, the channel began airing a more pop-driven rotation of videos.
As noted before, M3 was marketed as a "superstation" and a separate channel from Much. Though both channels had diverged from their original purpose, Much still retained its music-based format while expanding to focus on pop culture and adopting more younger-skewing programming (The music-based format has since been removed, as Much eventually changed its demographic to male).
Notable former personalities
* Matt Wells
* Karen Bertelsen
Karen Bertelsen is a Canadian television personality and blogger, known for hosting various programs, including HGTV Canada's ''Superstar''-styled shows, ''Handyman Superstar Challenge'', '' Designer Superstar Challenge'' and Slice Network's ' ...
* Diego Fuentes
Diego Antonio Fuentes Lopez, known as Diego Fuentes, is a Canadian actor of Chilean descent and Toronto socialite.
MuchMusic
Fuentes was MuchMusic's first ever VJ Search winner in 1995, going on to host the popular ''Clip Trip'' show on MuchMus ...
* Bill Welychka
Bill Welychka (born in Welland, Ontario) is a Canadians, Canadian television personality.
Welychka joined CHUM Limited in 1988 as a video editor for MuchMusic. In 1992, he became a VJ (media personality), VJ for the channel, staying with Much for ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:M3 (Canadian TV Channel)
Music video networks in Canada
1998 establishments in Canada
2016 disestablishments in Canada
Former Bell Media networks
Much (TV channel)
Analog cable television networks in Canada
Defunct Canadian television channels
English-language television stations in Canada
Television channels and stations disestablished in 2016
Television channels and stations established in 1998