Discretionary service


A discretionary service is a Canadian specialty channel which, as defined by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, may be carried optionally by all subscription television providers. It replaces the previous category A, category B, category C, and premium classifications.
Discretionary services may air programming from any of the CRTC's defined categories, although no more than 10% of programming per month may be devoted to live professional sports. Discretionary services may offer multiplex channels with CRTC permission.

Background

As part of "Let's Talk TV", a CRTC initiative to reform Canada's broadcasting industry, the Commission announced in 2015 that it would phase out its previous "genre protection" rules, which forbade services with Category B licenses from directly competing with those with Category A licenses. The Commission felt that these restrictions were "no longer needed to ensure programming diversity between services", as " limited programming services to offering certain types of programming and precluded other services from offering that programming." As part of these changes, the CRTC began transitioning all pay and specialty services to standardized conditions of license.
In November 2016, per a request by DHX Media, the previous premium television designation was also removed, merging them into the discretionary services category and allowing them to, if they choose, transition to advertising-supported formats.

List of licensed discretionary services

Former Category A services

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Services with less than 200,000 subscribers that would otherwise meet the definition of a discretionary service, and services which air 90% of their programming in a language other than English, French, or those of Canadian aboriginal peoples, are exempted from formal licensing by the CRTC.

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