The fallout of the Bell-Quebecor war has another victim: Yoopa, which Bell pulled from its television service in retaliation for Quebecor’s Videotron pulling Bell channels Vrak and Z, is being shut down in January, replaced by a video version of Quebecor’s QUB Radio online radio service as of Jan. 11.
According to its annual filing with the CRTC, Yoopa had $2.6 million in revenue, all but $30,000 of which came from subscriptions, in 2021-22, and spent about $2 million on programming, a bit less than half of which was Canadian. It had 340,000 subscribers and a staff of three.
The loss leaves a hole for television targeting young children, though public broadcasters Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec devote much of their morning programming to programs for kids.
Meanwhile, Quebecor seems to be doubling down on its QUB Radio digital talk radio project, and will now be putting even more resources into it, even though it already has a 24/7 news channel in LCN. Quebecor doesn’t release ratings or financials for this online-only service so we have no idea if it’s successful. But it’s cheap, at least compared to the news programming we see on LCN.
Whether QUB Radio or its still-to-be-named TV version lasts is an open question. Honestly I’m a bit surprised it survived the latest round of media cuts at Quebecor.
In theory, QUB TV could apply to be a national news service, requiring other providers to carry it, but that would require having news bureaus and regular news updates, and the CRTC might have some questions if it tries to just piggyback on LCN’s resources to achieve that status.
Videotron will obviously embrace QUB Radio on TV. Bell is probably not interested. Whether others who carry Yoopa, like Cogeco, make the switch is an open question.
I suspect the CRTC won’t grant thing mess any special status until it has run for a while and proves that it in fact meets the incredibly low standards set. They may also suggest that since Quebecor already has one bite at the apple, that perhaps a second service can’t justify mandatory coverage.
This is a classic Canadian paradox. In theory, a cable distributor would want any channel that people would subscribe to, especially if they channel is either free or comes with a low per subscriber cost. The paradox is that since the distributors are also competitors, they make business decisions that are for the bigger picture and not for the individual business units.
It could be interesting to know if TVA would have been in better shape had Rogers acquired it instead of Quebecor with a little help of The Caisse of Depot from what I saw on that old French article? https://www.lesaffaires.com/archives/generale/quebecor-achete-videotron-en-2000-avec-l-aide-de-la-caisse-de-depot/554551
It’s impossible to know what would have been different had that acquisition gone through almost a quarter century ago. For one thing, Videotron wouldn’t exist anymore and Rogers would be the dominant cable provider in Quebec (and Canada). Whether Quebec would have had a strong fourth competitor in wireless services is questionable. If you look at Citytv, it’s hard to make a case that TVA would have been better in terms of local news if Rogers was in charge.
Is CJET FM 92.3 operated from Ottawa? Posts were mentioning content was coming from an Ottawa broadcast centre. It is Santa Radio Canada and it will have a new format soon. It could become Jack or Sonic radio. Does it still have a Smith Falls studio near the tower. Will FM 92.3 have an Ottawa valley studio? OK to ask?
Country 1011 CKBY sounds mono not stereo. Audio is bad quality. I sound rather listen to country on CKKL 93.9.