Sirius Canada and Montreal-based Astral Média Radio have inked a deal to provide two French-language Canadian-based music stations for Sirius Canada’s satellite radio service.
The two stations–which launch in December–are Rock Velours, a Canadian-based adult contemporary station, and top 40-based Energie2.
“Rock Velours and Energie2 are both great examples of the winning content that Sirius Canada will soon be able to bring to Quebeckers and all Canadians,” says Andréanne Sasseville, director of Canadian talent promotion and public relations for Sirius Canada.
Sirius Canada is a partnership between the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Toronto-based Standard Broadcasting Corp. Ltd., and New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., which owns a 20% of the shares.
In June, Canadian federal government regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, granted Sirius Canada a license to offer at least eight Canadian-produced channels with 85% Canadian content programming along with maximum of nine foreign channels (being provided by U.S.-based Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.) for each Canadian channel. At least 25% of the Canadian channels must be in the French language. The CBC will provide two further French-language radio stations for Sirius Canada.
In June, the CRTC also approved a joint venture of Toronto-based CHUM Ltd. and Montreal-based Astral Media Inc. to offer a service comprising 50 channels produced entirely in Canada–of which at least 20% in the French language–that would use terrestrial transmitters instead of satellites.
In light of Astral’s new deal with Sirius, it is expected that CHUM-Astral will now cancel their co-venture.
