The
Movie Network or
TMN is
Eastern Canada's answer to
HBO.
What eventually would become TMN started out in
1981 with the licensing by the
CRTC of two
movie-oriented
pay-tv channels for distribution in eastern Canada
First Choice and
Star Channel. Star Channel went into
receivership less than a
year after its
launch and First Choice acquired its
assets and
subscribers.
Two years later First Choice itself was in serious
financial trouble as well. Hardly surprising since it lost
25 million dollars in its
first six months of
operation.
Around this time
Astral Bellevue Pathe (originally a film
finishing company) a leading
film producer and
distributor and a
failed applicant decided to
rescue First Choice despite the fact that it would require an additional $25 million to
bail the company out and if the attempt was
unsuccessful it would
ruin Astral too.
Fortunately Astral had a good reputation with the film distributors who comprised the majority of First Choice's (and its sister
French network Primer Choix/
Super Ecran) creditors and were able to convince them not to
sue the company into
bankruptcy. After making alliances with
US pay channels such as HBO,
Showtime and
Cinemax to cost-share original programming production costs and a reworking of both the
English and French services both netwoks were on their feet in
3 years.
In
1993 First Choice was
rebranded The Movie Network and in
1994 the
spinoff network
Moviepix showing movies produced before the 1990's was launched. Shortly after three
multiplex channels were launched first only broadcasting in
prime time, then from
noon to around
4am, then from
7am to 4am, and finally,
24 hours a day. Since then two additional multiplex channels have appeared along with a another channel called Moviepix Too which is a two hour
delay of the main moviepix signal.
TMN and Moviepix only
broadcast east of the
Ontario-
Manitoba border. The western versions are
Superchannel and
Moviemax both owned by
WIC. This gives each company an effective
monopoly in their respective areas. I have no idea about the quality of Superchannel's
programming since I've never been to Western Canada but I assume it is similar to TMN's. However, because of the partnership between TMN and HBO shows such as
The Sopranos are not shown on Superchannel.