The CRTC this week found insufficient evidence that SpikeTV was competitive with any Canadian specialty or pay TV service, ending an almost two-year bid by the Canada’s private broadcasters to have the rebranded U.S. channel removed from the country (CCR, March 25/04, June 30/03). The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) and some private broadcasters on their own argued that when new owner Viacom International switched its focus to the 18-45 male demo, it had become competitive with some Canadian channels such as the Category 1 Men TV. Foreign services cannot be partially or totally competitive with any existing Canadian TV channels (except if they are general interest ethnic channels in which most of the programming is in a language other than French or English). Thus, the CRTC amended the list of foreign services eligible for carriage in Canada to add Spike TV and remove TNN: The National Network (the previous incarnation of Spike) Below is an excerpt from the CRTC’s decision that analyzes its competitiveness with regard to Men TV.

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