Stingray Hits is a Canadian
French language
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...
music television channel owned by
Stingray Group
Stingray Group Inc. (formerly Stingray Digital and Stingray Digital Group) is a publicly traded Canadian media and entertainment company based in Montreal, Quebec, with offices in the United States, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, S ...
. The channel broadcasts music videos from pop, pop-rock, and dance hits primarily from current day's artists, along with past artists. The channel broadcasts in multiple languages depending on the country of operation, currently in French and Dutch.
History
On February 21, 2018, Proximus announced that it had reached an agreement with Stingray Digital to launch Stingray Hits on Proximus' television service in Belgium with two channels, one in French and one in Dutch. Several months later, the channel launched in Canada in French on the Vidéotron service. Initially launched in
high definition
High definition or HD may refer to:
Visual technologies
*HD DVD, discontinued optical disc format
*HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format
*HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tape
* HiDef, 24 frames-pe ...
, the channel launched a
standard definition feed later when it launched on Bell Fibe TV in August 2018.
In March 2020, after initially operating as an exempted service in Canada, the
CRTC approved a formal
discretionary service
A discretionary service is a Canadian specialty channel which, as defined by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, may be carried optionally by all subscription television providers. It replaces the previous category A ...
license for Stingray Hits. Although submitted by Stingray as being a French-language service, the CRTC classified the channel as an English-language service due to a determination that only 40% of the channel's content (including music videos and spoken word content) was actually in French, however, the channel's on-air imaging and programming is still nominally presented in French. On June 2, 2021, the CRTC approved an application classifying the Canadian channel as a French language service, mandating at least 50% of the music videos broadcast on the channel be French.
Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2021-190
CRTC, 06-02-2021
References
External links
Official site
Stingray Group
Commercial-free television networks
Music video networks in Canada
Television channels and stations established in 2018
Digital cable television networks in Canada
French-language television networks in Canada
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