(Montreal) It is the end of an era in the history of television in Quebec. A victim of the war between Bell Media and Videotron, but also of the transformation of the market, the Vrak channel – formerly the Canal Famille – will disappear from the airwaves this fall, after having been the meeting place for a whole generation of young people and a springboard for countless Quebec artists.
“I can’t believe it’s closing. That it closes, and that it can no longer be the springboard for others, “reacted comedian Philippe Laprise on Friday, who made himself known in 2009 on the show Vrak la vie, alongside Pierre Hébert, Marie-Soleil Dion and Marie-Claude St-Laurent. The quartet exchanged a few text messages on Friday morning after Bell Media’s announcement. “We’re a little flabbergasted, a little shocked and a little sad,” said Philippe Laprise.
Bell Media’s announcement comes two days after the withdrawal of the Vrak and Z channels from the Helix and illico schedules, the latest development in the war that Bell and Videotron have been waging for many years. We knew something was going to happen. At the launch of Bell Media’s specialty channels on Wednesday, no word had been said about Vrak’s offer.
The blow will have been fatal for Vrak, which probably lost half of its subscribers by losing those of Helix and illico. As of midnight, October 1, the channel will cease to exist altogether.
Bell Media has made no secret of Videotron’s role in Vrak’s death. This announcement prompted her to “reassess the range of programming.” In a press release, Bell Media also referred to the current context, marked by a “constantly changing” environment, and described as “obsolete” the regulatory framework with which broadcasters must comply. Viewers, on the other hand, are “not enough anymore”.
“Closing Vrak’s operations is not a decision we wanted to make,” wrote Karine Moses, senior vice president of content and news at Bell Media. She called the specialty channel “unifying, entertaining and current”, noting that it has left its mark on several generations of Quebec viewers. Bell Media declined to comment further on the matter.
Created in 1988 under the name Canal Famille, the channel became Vrak.TV in 2001, then simply Vrak in 2014, after Bell acquired Astral Media. The channel will have marked a whole generation of young people with series like Une grenade avec ça? (from 2002 to 2011), Vrak la vie (from 2009 to 2015), L’appart du 5e (from 2013 to 2016), Le chalet (from 2015 to 2019) and Jérémie (from 2015 to 2019). The list of artists who have passed through Vrak includes names like Magalie Lépine-Blondeau, Catherine Proulx-Lemay, Stéphane Bellavance, Yan England, Mariana Mazza, Patrice Bélanger, Ludivine Reding…
Singer-songwriter Claudia Bouvette was discovered on the show Mixmania in 2012, and for five seasons she performed the role of Raphaëlle in Jérémie. “It’s been so important in my life, Vrak,” Claudia Bouvette dropped on the phone Friday. She remembers the madness surrounding Karv, the anti-gala, broadcast between 2004 and 2014. In her eyes, it was the most exciting and important Quebec gala of the time.
Claudia Bouvette said she was shaken by the announcement, but not really surprised. She witnessed from afar the slow decline of Vrak, which presented fewer and fewer Quebec productions and more and more dubbed American fiction. “With the world we live in, and the way we consume our entertainment, I’m more or less surprised,” she says.
Joined by La Presse, Maxim and Livia Martin also suffered a form of shock on Friday, they who played in the comedy Max and Livia from 2017 to 2019. Livia also grew up with Vrak. “There is a big transformation. Now everything goes on the web, said Maxim Martin. I think there is nostalgia, but for my gang. For young people, we are going elsewhere. »
Livia agrees that something is lost with Vrak’s passing, but she says she trusts her generation’s open-mindedness, “proud” of their language and culture. “It’s going to become something else, it’s going to become web,” says Livia Martin.
Karelle Tremblay, who held the title role in Jérémie, hopes that Vrak will be replaced by something else. “Young people need role models,” says Karelle Tremblay. It’s really important. »
Vrak is a symbol for a generation, and its closure also has a strong symbolism, believes Arnaud Granata, president of Formations Infopresse. He sees different factors behind this news. There is of course Videotron’s decision to no longer offer Vrak to its subscribers (Bell responded this week by withdrawing TVA Group’s Yoopa youth channel from its packages).
“But there is also the general context of the decline in audience”, underlines Arnaud Granata.
Among young Canadians aged 14 to 17, the number of hours spent watching linear television has more than halved between 2014 and 2022, from an average of 22 hours to just 10 hours, according to Vividata survey data. The same demographic group now spends an average of 23 hours per week on the Internet, including 16 hours on their mobile, says Alexandra Lafond, media director at Cossette Media and member of the Standing Committee of Quebec Media Directors of the Association des creative communication agencies (A2C).
“It is certain that the effectiveness of television with young people has changed,” notes Alexandra Lafond.
Remember that in July, the A2C launched the Local Media Movement to encourage companies to devote a greater part of their digital budgets to local media.
