|
HBO Canada is a Canadian premium cable and satellite television channel that is primarily devoted to original programming and special events sourced from the HBO and Cinemax subscription services in the United States, as well as domestic motion pictures. HBO Canada is not available as a standalone channel, but as one multiplex channel within two regional premium television services: The Movie Network (TMN), which is available in Eastern Canada, and Movie Central, which is offered in Western and Northern Canada. Territorial broadcast rights to HBO Canada by either service within the provinces are separated at the Ontario-Manitoba border (Movie Central holds rights to the west of that border and TMN holds rights to the east of the border). As different multiplex channels of a single pay service cannot have separate sets of owners, each service's parent company (Bell Media for TMN, Corus Entertainment for Movie Central) officially retains full ownership of the HBO Canada channel in their respective territories. However, in practice the channel is jointly managed by both companies, and thus the HBO Canada schedule is common to both services, except that TMN's feed of the channel operates on an Eastern Time Zone schedule while Movie Central feeds the same programming two hours later on Mountain Time. On November 19, 2015, Bell announced plans to expand TMN nationally, while Corus will shut down Movie Central in exchange for a C$211 million payment from Bell. As a result, Bell will take over full operations of HBO Canada once the changeover occurs. Time Warner, the parent company of HBO and Cinemax, is not a shareholder in HBO Canada, and only licenses the name, logo and programming to Bell and Corus. ==History== On September 22, 2008, The Movie Network and Movie Central announced that the two networks would jointly begin offering a dedicated HBO multiplex channel (in both standard definition and high definition formats), which would debut on October 30.〔(Astral/Corus press release ), September 22, 2008.〕 For TMN subscribers, HBO Canada replaced MMore and MMore HD, while for Movie Central subscribers, HBO Canada replaced Movie Central 4 and Movie Central 1 HD. The channel was originally a joint venture between then-owner of The Movie Network, Astral Media and Movie Central owner Corus Entertainment, which held the rights to telecast HBO Canada in the designated service areas of their respectively owned pay services. Although some HBO programming had already aired in Canada on pay services such as TMN and Movie Central and/or basic cable specialty channels such as Showcase, many other programs from the network were not previously widely available in Canada; the new channel was created with the intention to fill the gap.〔 Original programming from HBO's sister service Cinemax have also been broadcast at times, particularly action series that Cinemax has aired since broadening its series programming content to include mainstream original series in August 2011 (prior to this, Cinemax's series programming consisted only of softcore pornographic programs). Some HBO series already carried by TMN or Movie Central were initially simulcast on their respective main channels, but shortly thereafter HBO programming became exclusive to HBO Canada, as opposed to any of the other multiplex channels of TMN or Movie Central. A selection of Canadian films and series also airs to satisfy Canadian content requirements,〔 and programs from other U.S. sources to which TMN and Movie Central both own rights (such as HBO and Cinemax competitor Showtime) may air as well at times. However, few feature films that had their original theatrical release in countries outside of Canada air on the channel, even when those movies air on HBO's main channel in the United States. Unlike the other multiplex channels offered by TMN and Movie Central, the two timeshifted HBO Canada feeds (East/West), in both standard-definition and high-definition, are available nationally to those television providers who wish to carry them. The Movie Network and some service providers primarily serving Eastern Canada refer to the West feed as HBO Canada 2 on their websites; other service providers simply distinguish them as East or West feeds (Movie Central's website does not discuss the Eastern feed). On March 4, 2013, the Competition Bureau approved the takeover of Astral Media by Bell Media.〔(BCE takeover of Astral OK’d by Competition Bureau ), ''The Montreal Gazette'' (via The Canadian Press), March 4, 2013.〕 Bell filed a new application for the proposed takeover with the CRTC on March 6, 2013;〔(Astral and Bell Comment on New Acquisition Application to CRTC ), ''Broadcaster Magazine'', March 6, 2013.〕 the CRTC approved the merger on June 27, 2013,〔(CRTC approves Bell-Astral merger ), CBC News, June 27, 2013. Retrieved July 16, 2013.〕 effectively turning over control of HBO Canada in Eastern Canada to Bell. Until 2014, HBO Canada was in many cases only permitted to offer current seasons of HBO programming on its linear channels or on-demand, with second window rights to older seasons often being sold to basic-cable specialty channels such as Showcase. In September, Bell and Corus announced a new deal whereby HBO Canada can now offer all episodes of all currently-produced HBO scripted programming through its various platforms. Simultaneously, Bell announced a separate deal for rights to the "off-air" (i.e., series no longer in production) HBO catalog "for future exploitation", similar to HBO's U.S. streaming deal with Amazon Video. Bell later announced that the off-air HBO library would become part of its then-upcoming streaming service CraveTV, which had been announced at the time as "Project Latte". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「HBO Canada」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|