Pelmorex Corp. is a Canadian weather information and media company. Based in

Oakville, Ontario Oakville is a town in Regional Municipality of Halton, Halton Region, Ontario, Canada. It is located on Lake Ontario between Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, Hamilton. At its Canada 2021 Census, 2021 census population of 213,759, it is List of tow ...

, it is the owner of the Canadian specialty channels

The Weather Network The Weather Network (TWN) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English language, English-language weather information specialty channel available in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. It delivers weather information on television, ...

(English) and

MétéoMédia MétéoMédia is a Canadian French-language weather information specialty channel and web site owned by Pelmorex. MétéoMédia primarily serves viewers in Quebec, although some cable TV systems in Ontario and New Brunswick carry the channel as we ...

(French), and their associated digital properties. Founded in 1989, "Pelmorex" is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsThe Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather forecas ...

in the United States was brought on board as a strategic minority shareholder. In the early 1990s, the company owned the

Pelmorex Radio Network The Pelmorex Radio Network was a system of Canadian radio stations in Northern Ontario, owned and operated by Pelmorex. History In 1989, Pierre Morrissette founded his own communications company, Pelmorex Media Inc., and acquired several French ...

stations in

Northern Ontario Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on part of the Superior Geological Provi ...

. The company sold the stations in 1998 and 1999, to

Telemedia Telemedia was a Canadian media company, which had holdings in radio, television and magazine publishing. The company was launched in 1968 by Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien, when he purchased CKAC in Montreal from Power Corporation of Canada. CK ...

and

Haliburton Broadcasting Group The Haliburton Broadcasting Group was a Canadian group of FM radio stations, located primarily in smaller markets in Ontario. The company was purchased by Vista Broadcast Group in 2012.Ontario Ministry of Transportation The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) is the provincial ministry of the Government of Ontario that is responsible for transport infrastructure and related law in Ontario. The ministry traces its roots back over a century to the 1890s, when the pro ...

Hydro One Hydro One Limited is an electricity transmission and distribution utility serving the Canadian province of Ontario. Hydro One traces its history to the early 20th century and the establishment of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario ( ...

and

Bruce Nuclear Generating Station Bruce Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power station located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada. It occupies 932 ha (2300 acres) of land. The facility derives its name from Bruce Township, the local municipality when ...

. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. In 2012, Pelmorex acquired the Spanish weather website eltiempo.es, where it focused on bolstering its digital and marketing operations, and hiring prominent local personality José Antonio Maldonado. It also acquired the traffic information provider Beat the Traffic. In 2013, Ron Close became the new president and CEO of the company. The company also began to plot out further expansion in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, as well as optimization of digital advertising delivery based on weather data. In 2015, Pelmorex bought out The Weather Channel's 49% stake in the company."The Weather Channel Sells Stake in Pelmorex Media"
''Broadcaster'', December 22, 2015.

Public alerting

In 2001, Pelmorex first proposed that an

emergency population warning An emergency population warning is a method whereby local, regional, or national authorities can contact members of the public en masse to warn them of an impending emergency. These warnings may be necessary for a number of reasons, including: * ...

system, "All Channel Alert", be implemented by all television providers, using proprietary Pelmorex hardware and funded primarily via an increase in carriage fees for The Weather Network/MétéoMédia. The

CRTC 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 ...

rejected the proposal, citing the need to consult with the industry over design, costs, and governance of the system. In 2010, Pelmorex established a "national aggregator and distributor" (NAAD) of localized emergency alert messages compliant with the

Common Alerting Protocol The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is an XML-based data format for exchanging public warnings and emergencies between alerting technologies. CAP allows a warning message to be consistently disseminated simultaneously over many warning systems to m ...

as a condition of a request for

must-carry In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system. North America Canada Under current CRTC regulations, the lowest tier of service on ...

status for the two channels. It is governed by representatives of the broadcasting industry, the federal government, members of the Senior Officials Responsible for Emergency Management (SOREM), and the Canadian Association for Public Alerting and Notification. In 2011, the CRTC renewed the must-carry status, under the condition that Pelmorex allow all federal, provincial and territorial emergency management officials to have access to the system, that it commit at least $1 million per-year on public awareness campaigns, and that it develop "broadcast-intrusive" alerts. On August 29, 2014, the CRTC ruled that all over-the-air television channels, radio stations, and television providers must begin relaying emergency messages relayed via NAAD beginning March 31, 2015; Pelmorex markets this under the public-facing brand "Alert Ready" (French: ''En Alerte''). Beginning April 2018, emergency alerts also became mandatory on mobile phones.

References

{{Pelmorex Communications Mass media companies established in 1989 Canadian companies established in 1989 1989 establishments in Ontario 1989 mergers and acquisitions 2006 mergers and acquisitions 2012 mergers and acquisitions Companies based in Oakville, Ontario Television broadcasting companies of Canada