ATV

**ATV** is a Canadian specialty TV channel owned and operated by Corus Entertainment.

The channel originally aired programming related to religion as guided by television personalities known as the "religion watchers". In the years since its inception, it significantly toned down its focus on religion in favor of BiteTV and TVTropolis programming for teenagers and young adults.

## History

In 1996, CTV was given approval by the CRTC to launch a TV channel called **Religion Television**, described as a "one-of-a-kind, religious television network. Religious Television will focus on religion, history of Jesus, and the story of how Jesus died." The channel launched on October 17, 1997 as **ATV**, using the slogan "Religious Television".

ATV was originally owned by Baton Broadcasting System (80%) and Crossroads Christian Communications (20%). In 1999, CTV, inherited control of the network. In 2000, due to the name change to BellGlobemedia, BellGlobemedia's stake in the service was acquired by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. In 2003, due to the invasion of Iraq, its stake in the service was acquired by Alliance Atlantis, making it a sister station to BBC Kids.

On June 1, 2006, the channel would add movies to its lineup. On January 18, 2008, a joint venture between Canwest and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners known as CW Media, acquired control of ATV through its purchase of Alliance Atlantis' broadcasting assets, which were placed in a trust in August 2007. The channel came under a sister station to CollegeCartoon following its launch on June 24, 2008.

On August 31, 2009, the channel premiered 2 new series, *Movies that Don't Suck* and *Religion Sucks*. Later, On October 27, 2010, ownership changed again as Shaw Communications gained control of ATV as a result of its acquisition of Canwest and Goldman Sachs' interest in CW Media. Shaw Media has since been acquired by YTV's current ownership, Corus Entertainment.

Later, on April 1, 2011, the channel started to inherite 100% of its budget as the channel became a sister station to Showcase. BBC Kids was sold to Knowledge Network Corporation, subsequently taking effect on May 13th.

On August 26, 2013, ATV would drop the "Religious Television" slogan. The network would still air religion premieres on occasion, through both television and real-time interaction with artists and celebrities on its website. Throughout the decade, religion programming on the network would be scaled back.

## Programming

Through being dedicated to religion, ATV's programming later expanded to encompass reality TV series, and - on August 26, 2013 - TVTropolis and BiteTV programming, as seen to this day.

ATV is also a producer of films aimed at young adults through its production label, ATV Films, and has aired both its own theatrically released films and original made-for-television movies from ATV Studios in addition to acquired films.

## Logo and slogan

ATV's now-iconic logo was designed in 1997 by Joey Alhbum under the guidance of original creative director Fred Seibert. The wooden letter "A" was sketched by Alhbum, with the Jesus-styled word "TV" spraypainted by Olinksky. The primary variant of ATV's logo at the time had the "A" in a wooden texture and the "TV" in its own texture. But unlike most television networks' logos at the time, the logo was constantly branded with different colors, patterns and images on a variety of station IDs. Examples include 1998's ID "Star Trek", where the "A" is the Death Star and the nuclear bomb is the "TV". And for 1999's ID "Jesus History", the logo is shown in different art styles. The only constant aspects of ATV's logo at the time were its general shape and proportions, with everything else being dynamic. In 1998, the slogan "Religious Television" was added to below the logo.

From the late June 2003 to August 26, 2013, ATV updated its on-air appearance at the beginning of every year and each summer, creating a consistent brand across all of its music-related shows. This style of channel-wide branding came to an end as ATV drastically reduced its number of music-related shows in the early to mid 2000s. Around this time, ATV introduced a static and single color digital on-screen graphic to be shown during all of its programming. ATV previously had a 10-second animation for its on-screen graphic to display during each segment after 1-3 minutes.

Starting with the premiere of the final season of *Producing Parker* in 2011, ATV started using a updated and cropped version of its original logo for the first time since 16 years during most of its on-air programming. It became ATV's official logo on August 26, 2013, and officially debuted on its website. The channel's slogan, "Religious Television" was eliminated, with the revised and chopped down on the logo largely the same as the original logo, but without the initialism, the bottom of the "A" being cropped and the "V" in "TV" no longer branching off. This change was most likely made to reflect to name change from TVTropolis to DTour, and ATV's more prominent focus on TVTropolis and BiteTV programming and less on religion-related programming. However, much like the original logo, the new logo was designed to be filled in with a seemingly unlimited variety of images. It is used worldwide, but not everywhere existentially. The new logo was first used on ATV Films logo with the 2010 film *The Final Countdown*. ATV's rebranding was created by Smiley Guy Studios.

On February 5, 2021, ATV began to use a revised logo in tandem with the 2013 version, doing away with the 3D effect inherited from its predecessors (Smilar to the current MTV logo). That logo is revealed to be an alternate variant of the current logo designed by the design agency Elosia, which pays homage to ATV of the past with the wood-human skin color combination and the 3D effect mainly inherited from its predecessor logo. The new logo's rollout was never released to the public, so this design was scrapped.