MTV was launched in Canada by CTV in 2006, replacing the specialty channel TalkTV which had been licensed and launched in 1996. MTV had already been launched in the US many years earlier, and by 2006 had no less than 43 program services throughout the world. CTV had already carried several MTV programs, including The Osbournes, Pimp My Ride, Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, and Punk’d. The new channel proclaimed its intention of carrying “….dynamic, interactive, lifestyle, talk and documentary programming,” 68% of which would be Canadian.
In August 2008, CTV launched MTV2, a second music channel, targeted at the 12 to 24-year-old demographic,with a licence that permitted 10% of its schedule to be music videos.
On March 31st 2009, MTV Canada, CTV and Free Form Productions Inc. announced that production had begun on ten episodes of an unscripted, half-hour original documentary series, to be titled Peak Season. The series would be shot in Whistler, B.C., and would “take a look at the unfiltered lives of some twenty-somethings,” in a environment “where relationships change(d) as often as the weather”.
The series debuted on MTV on October 19th 2009, and the viewing figures were sufficiently impressive for CTV to play it on their main network later in the year, with two episodes being scheduled 7:00 – 8:00pm each evening, December 28th through January 1st. There were obviously cross-promotional benefits to be gained for CTV’s carriage of the forthcoming Vancouver Winter Olympics coverage in February 2010.
Ownership: CTV
Start Year: 2006