Sundance Channel Canada has shut down

[CDN Viewer]

As of March 1, Sundance Channel Canada has ceased operations. There is a note posted on the Sundance Channel website- no word if any of the Sundance original series will air on other channels?!

One niche channel down, many more to go for Corus IMO. I think they will shut down more channels but it will be a slow, staggered process. The following channels are all outside of Corus' core focus (women, kids/family) which means they could be on the chopping block:

Action (male-oriented channel)
CMT (this channel has been gutted and now just airs a bunch of sitcoms all day long- it should be axed)
DejaView (older content that is never refreshed)
H2 (US version has shut down, content should be merged into History)
IFC (movie channel, they have shut down all movie services they owned including women-centric W Movies)
MovieTime (same as IFC)

[Test Pattern]

As of March 1, Sundance Channel Canada has ceased operations. There is a note posted on the Sundance Channel website- no word if any of the Sundance original series will air on other channels?!

One niche channel down, many more to go for Corus IMO. I think they will shut down more channels but it will be a slow, staggered process. The following channels are all outside of Corus' core focus (women, kids/family) which means they could be on the chopping block:

Action (male-oriented channel)
CMT (this channel has been gutted and now just airs a bunch of sitcoms all day long- it should be axed)
DejaView (older content that is never refreshed)
H2 (US version has shut down, content should be merged into History)
IFC (movie channel, they have shut down all movie services they owned including women-centric W Movies)
MovieTime (same as IFC)

Why don't they just shut all the damn channels down. They are all completely Trash.

[InMontreal]

Sundance was a Cat B specialty, therefor, the CRTC had limited public financial data available. For what it's worth, it was bleeding money : made $5.63 millions in 2013, down to $3.99 millions in 2016, while they kept spending $2.5 millions in production, most likely acquisitions and broadcasting rights.

- Action = $18.45 millions in 2016
- CMT = $21.5 M
- DejaView = $7.98 M
- H2 = $9.38 M
- IFC = $9.09 M
- MovieTime = $15.5 M

Sundance was the first to go, mainly because it's licenced from AMC who has a history of being greedy. They threated to pull the channel from Cogeco, Rogers, and last month, Videotron. I wouldn't be surprised if they asked Corus for higher licencing fees for the brand.

Guess who owns IFC in the states ? Yup, AMC too ! Despite generating $3.73 M in profits last year and less every year, it's just a matter of time before the licence contrat expires and the channel vanishes.

DejaView could be the next to go, as programming acquisition keep increasing, but Corus can recycle its retro channel and dig into its library of WTN / W Network, Life Network / Slice and other female/kids channels, and program old reality shows, as well YTV's "music-videos years" programming there to keep the costs down and attract that generation of subscribers.