Comedy Gold, Cosmo TV & IFC to shut down

[mtlguy]

The transaction was probably cancelled and some kind of arrangement happened between them. THey did not issue a press release of course for such type of arrangement, but I would find it very bad that Bell would do that...I see Quebecor do this, but Bell is bad, but not that bad. I think ;)

[InMontreal]

I'm concerned no other specialty channel shutdown was announced. Bell renamed their "core" channels and integrated them within the CTV app and website, but what about the worthless, bottom of the list, zombie channels such as Book, Fashion, and MTV2?

Over Corus, there are the obvious ones: History2, Nickelodeon, Crime, Dejaview...

[CDN Viewer]

The zombie channels, as you refer to them (or junk channels as I call them ) are still 'alive' because they are included in the big packages that BDU's offer and they still turn some sort of profit. The programming might suck and they are are likely all operated by one person or a computer but as long as they make money they will keep them on the air. What I would like to know is what kind of viewership these channels get- is anyone watching or are they just operating for the sake of operating?! Corus actually shut down several channels the past few years but Bell has done nothing- BookTelevision, FashionTelevision, ESPN Classic, MTV2 and Much should all be shut down IMO as they are all an afterthought to Bell.

[InMontreal]

they are included in the big packages that BDU's offer and they still turn some sort of profit.

Well, according to CRTC financial details:
- MTV2 made $2.26M in profits in 2015, $754k in 2016, lost -$68k in 2017, -$2.97M in 2018, -$1.4M in 2019, subscribers dropping slowly 1M to 950k, advertisers spend $50k per year.
- Book still profitable ($614k in 2019), ad revenues up ($200k), 409k subscribers dropping.
- FashionTV still profitable ($559k in 2019), ad revenues $34k average, 282k subscribers still dropping.
- ESPN Classic losing money since the last 3 years (-$430k 2017, -$550k 2018, -$606k in 2019), uninterested advertisers ($8k in 2019!), subscribers dropping, 302k in 2019.

MTV and MuchMusic are still analog legacies, we're still talking about profits (+/-), ads and, subscribers in the millions.

Comedy Gold was a programming laughstock compared to MeTV, AntennaTV and other retro channels from Buffalo and Vermont. It was still making profits around $1M, advertisers spent $1M for 500k subscribers, but it was put out of its misery a year after its sale with Wow.