AMI-télé is a

Canadian Canadians () 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 their being ''C ...

French language

digital cable Digital cable is the distribution of cable television using digital data and video compression. The technology was first developed by General Instrument. By 2000, most cable companies offered digital features, eventually replacing their previo ...

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 ...

owned by the non-profit organization Accessible Media Inc. (AMI). AMI-télé is a French version of AMI's English-language service

AMI-tv AMI-tv is a Canadian, English-language, digital cable specialty channel. Owned by Accessible Media Inc. (AMI), it primarily broadcasts programming relating to accessibility and disabilities. All programming is broadcast with accommodations for ...

, and broadcasts a selection of general entertainment programming with accommodations for those who are visually or

hearing impaired Hearing loss is a partial or total inability to Hearing, hear. Hearing loss may be present at birth or acquired at any time afterwards. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children, hearing problems can affect the ability to Lang ...

, consisting of

described video Audio description (AD), also referred to as a video description, described video, or visual description, is a form of narration used to provide information surrounding key visual elements in a media work (such as a film or television program, or ...

on the primary audio track and

closed captioning Closed captioning (CC) is the process of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information, where the viewer is given the choice of whether the text is displayed. Closed cap ...

available across all of its programming. The channel also broadcasts series on accessibility- and disability-related topics. AMI-télé is licensed 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) as a Category A "

must-carry In cable television, many governments, including the ones of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, apply a must-carry regulation stating that forces a cable TV provider to carry the public interest programming, like locally licensed te ...

" service; it must be carried on the lowest level of service by all licensed digital cable,

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location.ITU Radio Regulations, Section IV. Radio Stations and Systems ...

, and

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV), also called TV over broadband, is the service delivery of television over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Usually sold and run by a Telephone company, telecom provider, it consists of broadcast live telev ...

providers in Canada.

History

In January 2013, when the CRTC opened a new round of applications for must-carry channels, AMI submitted an application for a

French-language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in ...

sister channel of AMI-TV known as AMI-TV Français, which would have a similar format to its English-language counterpart. AMI justified the need for the channel by noting that the three provinces which host the majority of Canada's

francophone The Francophonie or Francophone world is the whole body of people and organisations around the world who use the French language regularly for private or public purposes. The term was coined by Onésime Reclus in 1880 and became important a ...

population—

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, and

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

—had above-average levels of vision loss and other vision-related conditions. On August 8, 2013, the CRTC approved the application; the CRTC recognized that given the impact of AMI-tv's English service, a French service would have an equivalent impact on Canada's francophone community. The service launched on December 16, 2014 as AMI-télé in both SD and HD. Much like AMI-tv, the channel was owned by a joint venture between

Shaw Media Shaw Media, Inc. was the television broadcasting division of Shaw Communications. It owned the Global Television Network, which broadcasts nationally via 13 television stations, as well as 19 specialty channels including Slice (TV channel), Slice ...

and Accessible Media, both owning 50%. On January 13, 2016, Accessible Media announced that it would acquire Shaw Media's stake in AMI-télé, giving it full ownership. The sale was part of a corporate re-organization tied to Shaw Media's proposed sale to

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 ...

, which had been approved by the CRTC in March 2016. Shaw Media was renamed to Corus Holdings Inc. four months later on September 1; the transaction was approved by the CRTC on December 20, 2016, and completed on January 1, 2017.

References

External links

AMI-télé
{{DEFAULTSORT:AMI-tele French-language television stations in Canada Specialty television channels in Canada Television channels and stations established in 2014 Disability mass media 2014 establishments in Ontario Public television in Canada