CTV Drama Channel
Canadian TV channel
CTV Drama Channel is a Canadian English language discretionary specialty channel owned by Bell Media. The channel primarily broadcasts drama series and films.
The channel was founded as the Canadian version of the American channel Bravo (which is now owned by NBCUniversal) on January 1, 1995 by Moses Znaimer and its owner CHUM Limited, and originally focused on performing arts, drama, and independent film. After the acquisition of CHUM by CTVglobemedia, the channel pivoted away from arts programming, and segued to a general entertainment format with a focus on drama (unlike its American counterpart, which has largely shifted to reality television programming targeting a female audience).
History
In the 1980s, a precursor to Bravo existed called C Channel. The service was boasted as a national commercial-free pay television channel that focused on arts programming. C Channel launched on February 1, 1983, before it went bankrupt and ceased operations five months later on June 30 of that year due to its inability to attract a sufficient number of subscribers at a price of $16 per month.
Over 10 years later, another attempt at an arts-based channel was proposed when CHUM Limited applied to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) for a license to operate Bravo. In June 1994, CHUM's application for Bravo was approved, citing its nature of service as focusing on "performance and drama programming, as well as documentary and discussion".
Bravo was launched on January 1, 1995, licensing the name from Rainbow Media, who partnered with CHUM to launch MuchMusic USA (later known as Fuse TV).
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2924142. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1995, 1983 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “CTV Drama Channel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.