History
The history of V goes back to 1968, when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) first expressed interest in the establishment of a third French-language commercial television service in the province of Quebec along with the existing Télévision de Radio-Canada and the loose association of independent stations that eventually became TVA. However, at that time, the CRTC did not call on applications for licences.
In 1972, the CRTC said it was prepared to receive licence applications in order to authorize a third commercial television service in Quebec, although it was not until 1974 when the CRTC granted licences to Télé Inter-Cité Québec Ltée. to operate TV stations in Montreal and in Quebec City. However nothing came of this project.
On November 15, 1984, the CRTC launched another call for applications, and in 1985 it held public hearings in Montreal to examine competing applications from partners Cogeco Inc. (60.3%) and Moffat Communications (39.7%), and another application by the Pouliot family, owners of Montreal's CTV affiliate, CFCF-TV and radio stations CFCF (later CINW, now defunct) and CFQR-FM (now CKBE-FM). Both applications applied to launch television stations in both Montreal and Quebec City. On September 6 of that year, the CRTC approved the application of the Pouliot family and its company, Réseau de Télévision Quatre-Saisons Inc. TQS was authorized to operate a French-language TV station in Montreal with an effective radiated power of 566,000 watts on channel 35. While it was denied an application for a station in Quebec City, it was allowed to set up a repeater there.
The network was launched in 1986 as Télévision Quatre-Saisons ("Four Seasons Television"). The network spent most of its earlier years in severe financial trouble; at one point, the revenues from CFCF-TV were all that were keeping the network afloat. It was, however, able to upgrade its Quebec City repeater to a full-fledged station in 1989. In its early years, it was known for advertising in English on its then-sister radio stations.
In 1995, the Pouliots sold TQS to Quebec cable company Vidéotron, who already owned TVA, Quebec's other private commercial network. Due to monopoly ownership concerns, Vidéotron immediately turned around and sold TQS to Quebecor, a newspaper publisher.
Quebecor acquired Vidéotron itself in 2001, and put TQS back on the market. Later in 2001, TQS was bought by a joint venture of CTVglobemedia (then known as Bell Globemedia) and Cogeco, another cable company. Cogeco owned 60% of the venture and handled most of the operations, while CTVglobemedia owned 40%. The acquisition, in a sense, reunited it with CFCF, which had been bought by CTV a year earlier.
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