YTV
From Nickelodeon
The topic of this article is of a questionable connection to the scope of this wiki.
If you believe this page should remain in the Nickelodeon Wiki, please explain why on its talk page. If this page obviously falls within the scope, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from articles that you have created yourself.
Administrators - Remember to check if anything links here and the page history before deleting.
YTV is a Canadian cable specialty television channel aimed at youth, available nationwide through cable and satellite television. Presently it is wholly owned by Corus Entertainment. "YTV" presumably stands for "Youth Television", although YTV itself denies this.
Launched on September 1, 1988, YTV was the successor to two prior special programming services operated by various Ontario cable companies beginning in the late 1970s. Not surprisingly, then, the two largest shareholders in YTV were two cable companies, Rogers Cable and a company known as CUC which would later be acquired by Shaw Communications. By about 1995, through various acquisitions and trades, Shaw had secured full control of YTV; it was spun off as part of Corus in 1999.
YTV's schedule is primarily children's programming, with target audiences ranging from pre-schoolers to young adults. At the upper end of this range are repeats of dramas such as Smallville and Gilmore Girls. Until recently it aired a significant number of British sitcoms in late night; it now only airs My Family. Among its claims to fame, it was the first to air the first completely computer-animated series, ReBoot, and the Anime show, "Sailor Moon". YTV's flagship programming block is The Zone, aired on weekday afternoons; Carlos Bustamente and Joyce currently host the interstitial segments.
While it produces or commissions a substantial portion of its programming, YTV also acquires and airs mosts of the original series of the similar American service Nickelodeon, which is not available in Canada. Thanks to strong contractual ties, YTV has exclusive access to all Nickelodeon titles, and to date has aired every one of their productions with the sole exception of Invader ZIM which, for reasons unknown, has never seen broadcast in Canada. Like Nickelodeon, YTV has also used the "gross-out" factor in its branding, albeit with much less slime; its mantra (and former slogan) is "Keep It Weird". It has recently gained a strong animé element in an attempt to appeal more to teens, picking up titles ranging from InuYasha to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and it also has picked up shows from other countries, most notable from the UK.
Generally YTV uses a number of different on-air logos, featuring the same arrangement of white letters on various imaginative creatures. One common current example as of 2005 is seen at right. The logo used on production credits - and thus presumably the "official" logo - features said arrangement on a red screen on a stylized purple television set, as viewed at an angle. In fall of 2005, a new post-6pm advertising style was developed for older audiences which uses a much simpler logo with barely any gross-out tactics.
