First Choice Canadian Communications Corporation, a company incorporated by a group of private investors was licensed in March 1982 to operate a national pay-tv service. 100% ownership of First Choice was subsequently acquired by Astral Media Inc. In 1984, First Choice became an eastern Canada service only, with the west being covered by Allarcom’s Superchannel service. From the eastern service’s slogan “Canada’s Movie Network” came the eventual name, TMN – The Movie Network, which was adopted in 1993.
The single letter M was later used as a common identity for the several individual channels introduced by TMN in subsequent years, including M: The Movie Network, with all the premiere titles; M-More; with content similar to that offered by M, but at different times; Mexcess, offering adult content and action/adventure material; MFun, which offered lighter fare to draw smiles and laughs, MPix, featuring classic films from the twenties to the present day, and MFest, designed to showcase award winning films from festivals around the world. Several of the channels also offered some of the more sophisticated television series, many of them from the U.S. HBO network.
On June 10th 2013, Astral’s The Movie Network and Corus Entertainment’s Movie Central announced their new production slate, which included Canadian actress Kim Cattrall’s return to television in a new half-hour comedy series titled Sensitive Skin, to be directed by Don McKellar, slated to begin shooting in Toronto in October.
Written by Pip Wedge – June, 2013
Ownership: Astral
Start Year: 1993