Fact Sheet

Business or Service:

Animation Specialty Television Service in French and English.

President:

John Riley

Ownership:

The Family Channel Inc. (53.3%); YTV, Canada Inc. (26.7%); Cinar Films Inc. (10%); Nelvana Limited (10%). Cinar and Nelvana each have the opportunity to increase their respective holdings to 20%. Cinar and Nelvana have indicated that they intend to exercise these options.

Coverage area:

National, via three feeds-one to serve the francophone market and the two others to serve the anglophone market in Eastern and Western Canada.

Broadcast Day:

24 hours per day.

Type of programming:

Animation in all its forms and programs about animation.

Canadian content:

Minimum level of 40% in the first broadcast year; by 2002, this level will increase to 60% of the broadcast year and 60% of the evening broadcast period (between 6 p.m. and midnight).

Expenditures on programming:

$5,216,000 in 1998-99. In each subsequent year, the service will expend on Canadian Canadian programs a minimum of 40% of the previous year's gross revenues.

Closed captioning:

By 2003, at least 60% of the English-language programming and a minimum of 40% of the French-language programming broadcast are expected to be closed captioned.

Advertising:

Restricted to 12 minutes of national paid advertising per hour.

Licence term:

Expiring August 31, 2003.

Service to be available by September 1997.