TV News

OK..Let me say that this is my second time writing this, as I was using "Blog this" and out of nowhere my firefox crashed. It was a pretty good rant as well.

So on June 30, Canadians will no longer get their MTV. It's a complicated story, starting with a company out of Vancouver (Craig Broadcasting) getting a digital Television license from the CRTC for a "Youth Oriented lifestyle" channel that somehow morphed into "MTV Canada" when Craig cut a deal with Viacom. Someone wasn't happy with that, Moses wasn't happy. That's Moses Znaimer, the guy who has brought you CHUM-TV, owners of the MUCH channels (MUCH, MUCH MORE MUSIC, MUCH LOUD, MUCH VIBE, and I think MUCH MORE RETRO is still on the go). CHUM thought that MTV didn't match with the license they were up against. Somewhere along the line, they also launched MTV 2.

Well, eventually Craig decided that it wasn't "fiscally responsible to continue the MTV experiment" (translation "We lost a pisspot of money and need a bail out"), all of a sudden, CHUM wasn't complaining anymore, because the now owned their competition, buying MTV and MTV2.

Viacom wasn't real happy with this, as it is a little knows fact that MuchMusic does have a US video station. So that ended up with an agreement to end the MTV name in Canada.

What does that leave us with? Razer, a channel that is filling it's schedule with reruns of "Dawson's Creek" and "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" along with it being a dumping ground for CHUM properties like "America's top Model" and a Canadian version of "Jackass". I'm a little disappointed with losing the "MTV News" specials and new episodes of "True life" but I think the more interesting part is what's going to happen to MTV 2.

It's going to become "PunchMuch" "Canada's first fully automated, all-request music video service" where people are going to be able to request videos with their text messaging cellphones. I'm thinking we're going to be seeing alot of "Simple Plan" and "Good Charlotte" videos but the most interesting thing for me,being the bit of a geek that I am, is if it's all automated and all request, how are they going to get their CANCON requirements that I am sure that they are going to need?

Both these channels launch on June 30