TV5 Québec Canada (abbreviated to TV5) 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 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 ...

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 ...

that focuses primarily on programming from international French-speaking broadcasters. The channel shares a broadcast licence with its sister network,

Unis UNIS or Unis may refer to: *Union of Nigerien Independents and Sympathisers, a defunct political party in Niger *Unis, a new religious movement founded in the 1960s, based on the teachings of George Gurdjieff *UniS, the corporate logo of the Univer ...

, a channel devoted to broadcasting programming primarily focusing on Canadian French-speaking communities, in particular, those living outside of Quebec.

History

The idea of a Canadian feed of

TV5Monde TV5Monde (), formerly known as TV5, is a French public television network, broadcasting several channels of French-language programming. It is an approved participant member of the European Broadcasting Union. The network is available across ...

, then known simply as TV5 Canada, was first proposed in 1986 when the ''Consortium de télévision Québec Canada'' (''Television Consortium Québec Canada'' in English), comprising CBC/Radio Canada, Télé-Quebec,

TFO TFO is a Canadian French language educational television channel and media organization serving the province of Ontario. It is owned by the Ontario French-language Educational Communications Authority (OTELFO), a Crown corporation owned by the ...

and the ''Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec'', joined the TV5 consortium the same year. The proposed channel underwent a

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 ...

hearing on specialty channel applications in July 1987, and TV5 Québec Canada was launched on September 1, 1988 as the spiritual successor to the cable television channel TVFQ 99 , which was originally launched in 1979 as a joint venture between

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 s ...

and the French

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entit ...

to rebroadcast TF1,

Antenne 2 France 2 () is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4 and France 5. France Télévisions also participates in Arte and Euronews. Since 3:20 CET on 7 Ap ...

and FR3 programming in Canada.

Overview

TV5 Québec Canada has a partnership with

, the second-most-widely distributed network in the world, reaching over 180 million households in over 200 countries. Unlike TV5Monde, which is based in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, France, and supervises the distribution of signals to all continents, TV5 Québec Canada is headquartered in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, and is owned by the non-profit group Le Consortium de télévision Québec Canada inc. (CTQC), which distributes and manages the channel in Canada. As with the TV5Monde consortium, CTQC is also a co-operative organisation currently structured as follows: one representative from each of the following,

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. ...

(also known as Radio-Canada),

Télé-Québec The Société de télédiffusion du Québec (; en, Quebec Television Broadcasting Corporation), branded as Télé-Québec (), is a Canadian French-language public educational television network in the province of Quebec. It is a provincial Crown ...

, and the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec (APFTQ) with two representatives appointed by the minister of Canadian Heritage, two others by Quebec's minister responsible for culture and communications and its minister responsible for international relations, and the remaining member of the board of directors is the president and CEO of CTQC.

Programming

TV5 broadcasts a variety of

programming from Canada and around the world, including drama, sports, documentaries and information programming among a variety of other genres. Canadian content is provided primarily by

and

, while foreign programming comes from the

France Télévisions France Télévisions (; stylized since 2018 as ) is the French national public television broadcaster. It is a state-owned company formed from the integration of the public television channels France 2 (formerly Antenne 2) and France 3 (former ...

group,

Arte France Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plus ...

RTBF The ''Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française'' (RTBF, ''Belgian Radio-television of the French Community'', branded as rtbf.be) is a public service broadcaster delivering radio and television services to the French-speaking Commu ...

(French language public broadcaster in Belgium),

RTS RTS may refer to: Medicine * Rape trauma syndrome, the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim * Revised Trauma Score, a system to evaluate injuries secondary to violent trauma * Rubinstein–Taybi syndrome, a condition characterized by ...

(French language public broadcaster in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

) and CIRTEF (council representing

French-speaking Africa African French (french: français africain) is the generic name of the varieties of the French language spoken by an estimated 141 million people in Africa in 2018, spread across 34 countries and territories.29 full members of the Organisa ...

Ici Radio-Canada Télé Ici Radio-Canada Télé (formerly known as Télévision de Radio-Canada) is a Canadian French-language free-to-air television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (known in French as Société Radio-Canada), the national pub ...

and

TVA The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a Federal government of the United States, federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, an ...

are also partners in TV5 and provide programming to the international parent channel, but as both are already widely available across Canada, most of their programming is replaced on the Canadian version by content from Télé-Québec and TFO. Unlike most other Canadian licensed channels, especially analogue licensed, TV5 Canada airs a considerably lower amount of Canadian content than other Canadian services: only 15% during its entire broadcasting day and 15% in primetime. Of that amount, it presents at least 104 hours of original first-run Canadian programming per year.

HD

On June 10, 2009, TV5 launched its own HD simulcast.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Analog cable television networks in Canada French-language television networks in Canada Television channels and stations established in 1988 1988 establishments in Quebec Companies based in Montreal