Vision received its first licence in 1987, and began its service the following year. It was owned by a not-for profit charitable organization. It claimed to be the only multi-faith and multi-cultural broadcaster in the world, and supplied “…a wide range of programs…..that explore spirituality, morality and cultural diversity.” Its basic program core, known as ‘cornerstone’, was produced or acquired by the network and represented close to half its schedule. The remaining programming, described as ‘mosaic’, was airtime bought by groups from a variety of religious denominations. Approximately 75 different faiths provided programming each year.
On Monday June 15th, 2009, media mogul Moses Znaimer announced that his company ZoomerMedia Ltd. had agreed to buy certain assets of Vision TV, subject to the CRTC approving the transaction.
On March 30th the CRTC approved ZoomerMedia’s application to acquire “the assets and undertakings of VTV used exclusively and predominantly in connection with VTV’s ownership and operation of the Canadian specialty service……Vision TV.”
On January 19th 2013 , the CRTC announced that, at a hearing to be held on April 23rd, one matter on the agenda would be the examination by the Commission of applications by existing programming services that were currently distributed on a mandatory basis as part of the basic service of all Canadian cable and satellite providers. The Commission would assess whether these services should continue to benefit from such distribution, as well as examine the overall renewal of these licences.
Vision TV was one of the services that could be affected by decisions taken as a result of this hearing. In reviewing their prospects – and those of others – at the hearing, Vision owner Moses Znaimer told the Globe and Mail: “This is a watershed moment that could determine if there are any independents left at all in the Canadian broadcasting system.”
On August 8th 2013, the CRTC announced that they had denied the application by Zoomer for Vision-TV to be mandatory for carriage by cable and satellite Broadcast Distribution Undertakings, because, in the Commission’s view, they had not “….successfully demonstrated to the CRTC that they met the criteria for a mandatory distribution order.”
ZoomerMedia began offering an HD feed for Vision on March 23, 2017.
Ownership: Zoomer Media Group
Start Year: 1998