Television in Quebec is a part of the culture of Quebec, with over 99% of households owning a television in Quebec. Long a preferred medium of many of Quebec's actors, artists, and writers, television has been one of the important forces in Quebec society, including its substantial influence in a series of dramatic changes in the 1960s: the Quiet Revolution.
Types of television
Although broadcast in French, la télévision québécoise has little relationship to television in France. It is similar to television in the United States: A 30-minute programming grid, commercials, local stations, and a division between broadcast television formed around networks of stations—which is freely available to anyone with a TV within their broadcast area—and cable television channels that require a subscription.
Broadcast television
The four major broadcast television networks in Quebec are Ici Radio-Canada Télé, TVA, Noovo and Télé-Québec. Some local advertising is aired and stations produce local newscasts, but all four networks otherwise air virtually identical schedules throughout Quebec, with the network signals being essentially the output of their Montreal flagships. Local stations affiliated with the networks are located in each of the 10 television markets of Quebec: Montreal, Quebec City, Gatineau–Ottawa, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Trois-Rivières, Rivière-du-Loup, Rimouski, Abitibi-Témiscamingue, and Carleton-sur-Mer.
TVA is by far the most watched network: in fall 2006, it held 28% of the Quebec francophone primetime television audience, compared to Radio-Canada's 19% and Noovo's 14%.
Given the predominantly French-speaking population, only CBC, the English-language television service (CBMT-DT) funded by the government of Canada, is available over the air throughout the province. Montreal has local owned-and-operated stations of CTV (CFCF-DT), Global (CKMI-DT), and Citytv (CJNT-DT), Canada's three main English-language networks, while Gatineau receives all three networks as part of the Ottawa media market; Global is also available over-the-air in Quebec City and Sherbrooke through rebroadcasters of the Montreal station.
Cable television
Quebec has the lowest cable television-satellite television penetration rates in Canada, with 85.7% of Quebecers having cable television, as of 2006.
Vidéotron and Cogeco are the largest cable companies in Quebec, although a large number of independent cable companies exist. These compete against satellite companies Bell Satellite TV and Shaw Direct, as well as Bell's IPTV service Bell Fibe TV.
The industry
There are two primary television seasons of approximately 13 weeks each with the first being a fall season running from the beginning of September to December and, then, a winter season running from January to April. It is during these two periods that the majority of new domestic series air.
Nearly all Quebecois television outlets are owned by six companies: the federally owned Société Radio-Canada, the provincially owned Société de télédiffusion du Québec, and private companies Groupe TVA, Corus Entertainment, Rogers Sports & Media, and Bell Media. These companies produce programming themselves or, more commonly, by independent producers. Tax breaks provided to independent producers have increased their workload, although the two largest networks produce a large amount of programming themselves.
Television production is centred in Montreal, where Radio-Canada and TVA have their large studio complexes and where most other independent studio facilities exist. A small amount of national programming is produced in Quebec City, in accordance with the licenses of the broadcast networks.
The French-language television industry in Canada uses much more original, domestic productions than English-language outlets. As the French-language stations did not compete with U.S. stations, and viewers were relatively uninterested in dubs of U.S. imports, there was a larger incentive to invest in original dramas and entertainment programming catered towards the captive Quebecois audience. the top ten shows were written and created by Quebecers. The Quebec television industry produced two and one half times more TV series per capita than American networks, and domestic dramas were four times as profitable as American imports.