TV5 Québec Canada (abbreviated to TV5) 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 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 ...

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 ...

that focuses primarily on programming from international French-speaking broadcasters. The channel shares a broadcast licence with its sister network, Unis, 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 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 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 founded in 1964. It's active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Owned by Qu ...

and the French

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

to rebroadcast

TF1 TF1 (; standing for ''Télévision Française 1'') is a French commercial television network owned by TF1 Group, controlled by the Bouygues conglomerate. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network. TF1 is part ...

, Antenne 2 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 city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

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

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

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, ...

, 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 (), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is the Canadian Public broadcasting, public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a Crown corporation that serves as the national public broadcaster, with its E ...

(also known as Radio-Canada),

Télé-Québec The (; ), branded as () (formerly known as ), is a Canadian French-language public educational television network in the province of Quebec. It is a provincial Crown corporation owned by the Government of Quebec. The network's main studios an ...

, TFO, 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 TFO, 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 (form ...

group, Arte France,

RTBF The ("Belgian Radio-television of the French Community"), shortened to RTBF (branded as rtbf.be), is a public broadcasting, public service broadcaster for the French Community of Belgium, French-speaking Community of Belgium. Its counterpart i ...

(French language public broadcaster in Belgium), RTS (French language public broadcaster in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

) and CIRTEF (council representing

French-speaking Africa African French () is the umbrella grouping of varieties of the French language spoken throughout Francophone Africa. Used mainly as a secondary language or ''lingua franca'', it is spoken by an estimated 320 million people across 34 coun ...

Ici Radio-Canada Télé Ici Radio-Canada Télé (stylized as ICI Radio-Canada Télé, and sometimes abbreviated as Ici Télé) is a Television in Canada, Canadian Canadian French, French-language terrestrial television, free-to-air television network owned by the Can ...

and TVA 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 Québec 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 Specialty television channels in Canada French-language television networks in Canada Television channels and stations established in 1988 1988 establishments in Quebec Companies based in Montreal