Launched January 31, 2000 Broadcast area National Website Historia (French) Headquarters Montreal | Country Canada Sister channel(s) History
Séries+ Founded 2000 Owned by Corus Entertainment | |
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Picture format 480i (SDTV)
1080i (HDTV) Profiles | ||
Historia is a Canadian French language Category A specialty channel owned by Corus Entertainment. The network broadcasts programming related to history and historical fiction, and is a sister network to the English-language History.
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History
Licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) as Canal Histoire to Alliance Atlantis and Premier Choix Networks (Astral), the channel was launched on January 31, 2000 as Historia.
On January 18, 2008, a joint venture between Canwest and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners known as CW media bought Alliance Atlantis and gained its interest in Historia. The new company also acquired Historia's English language equivalent, History Television (now History).
On October 27, 2010, Shaw Communications completed its acquisition of Canwest and Goldman Sachs' interest in CW Media, giving it control of CW Media's 50% interest in Historia.
On March 4, 2013, Corus Entertainment announced that it would acquire Astral Media's stakes in Séries+ and Historia, as well as several other properties, under separate transactions with the two companies. The purchase was tied to Bell Media's pending takeover of Astral Media; an earlier proposal had been rejected by the CRTC in October 2012 due to concerns surrounding its total market share following the merger, but was restructured under the condition that the companies divest certain media properties. In a separate deal, Corus also acquired Shaw's interests in Séries+ and Historia, giving it full ownership. The deals were approved by the CRTC on December 20, 2013 and Corus become the full owner of the channel on January 1, 2014.
On October 21, 2014, Corus reached an agreement with A&E Networks to acquire French-language rights to programming from History, the U.S. counterpart of Historia's former English-language sister network. On March 9, 2015, the network was re-launched under History's logo and branding, while maintaining the Historia name. Historia was re-united with its English-language counterpart in April 2016 following the reorganization of Shaw Media into Corus.
Historia HD
On October 30, 2006, Astral Media launched a high definition simulcast feed of Historia.