On May 18th 2006, Allarco Entertainment Inc. of Edmonton was licensed by the CRTC to launch a new national digital pay television service, the first such national service in Canada, that would compete for viewers with the existing pay TV services provided in the West by Corus with Movie Central and Encore Avenue, and in the East by Astral with TMN and Movie Pix. Allarco elected to call the service Super Channel, thereby bringing the wheel full circle for Allarco chief executive Charles Allard, whose Allarcom Limited had operated a western pay service under the name Superchannel in 1984.
The CRTC rejected a request by Allarco that the existing pay TV services should be precluded from making exclusive deals for major U.S. feature packages, but did require that the new pay service be mandatory for carriage by all Broadcast Distribution Undertakings (BDUs) capable of providing digital services.
Super Channel launched on October 19th, 2007. In September 2008, the service also became available in High Definition.
On June 16th, 2009, Super Channel’s owner company Allarcom filed for protection against its creditors but indicated that the company planned to reorganize and continue broadcasting. The company had had problems competing with their specialty channel rivals for top movie content but had also expressed their feeling that the cable companies had not given their new service as much promotion as they would have wished.
In 2018, Super Channel unveiled new corporate branding and channel logos. Super Channel 1 (SC1) and Super Channel 2 (SC2) were rebranded as Super Channel Fuse and Super Channel Heart & Home, as of June 4. They joined existing channels Super Channel Vault and GINX Esports TV Canada under the Super Channel Entertainment Network umbrella.
In 2019, Allarco Entertainment Limited Partnership applied to the CRTC to renew the broadcasting licence for Super Channel, which would be renewed as a discretionary service. The Commission received interventions that raised issues regarding instances of apparent non-compliance relating to the distribution of Canadian programs; the eligibility and late payment of certain Canadian programming expenditures; the eligibility of certain expenditures devoted to regional outreach programs; the eligibility and late payment of certain expenditures devoted to script and concept development; and the eligibility and late payment of certain expenditures devoted to regional outreach programs and script and concept development.
Ownership: Allarcom
Start Year: 2007