Bloomberg launching Canadian TV channel

Bloomberg is pushing into the Canadian television market with plans to launch a revamped channel later this year, featuring locally-produced business news and interviews, writes James Bradshaw of The Globe and Mail.

Bradshaw writes, “The new network, to be announced Thursday and named Bloomberg TV Canada, is expected to launch in mid-2015 in partnership with independent media company Channel Zero Inc., based out of a downtown Toronto studio high above Bay Street.

“The channel will effectively replace the existing Bloomberg Television, an American network distributed in Canada, on many TV dials. At launch, it will have about 35 per cent Canadian content, produced from the Toronto hub and drawn from Bloomberg’s six Canadian bureaus, including news updates, Toronto Stock Exchange coverage, and an evening newscast built around interviews. The rest of the schedule will be made up of existing U.S. programming.

“‘We have a product that’ll have a good mix of U.S. coverage, of global coverage, and most importantly through our partnership, of Canadian coverage as well,’ said Todd Swidler, global head of content partnerships at Bloomberg.

“The network will be majority owned by Channel Zero, which also owns Ontario-based CHCH-TV news as well as Rewind and Silver Screen Classics, two specialty channels that air movies from past decades.”

Read more here.