VisionTV is a Canadian English language cable television specialty channel that airs multi-faith and multicultural programming.

VisionTV is owned by S-VOX; a not-for-profit charitable organization. VisionTV's funding comes from cable subscription fees, viewer donations, advertising revenues and the sale of airtime to faith groups.

Programming

VisionTV's programming consists of two programming streams; Mosaic and Cornerstone.

Mosaic

Its Mosaic block consists of faith related programming representing 75 faith groups within various religious denominations, including Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. While the station sells time to several television evangelists, most of its Christian programming tends to originate from more mainstream denominations such as the United Church of Canada and the Catholic Church.

Cornerstone

VisionTV's Cornerstone programs include music, feature films, dramas, comedies, documentaries and programming on social issues that explore spirituality, morality and cultural diversity.

The network also sponsors an annual Canadian drama competition, which solicits television series proposals revolving around faith and cultural diversity and then funds a pilot episode for the winning proposal. Two noted Canadian series, Lord Have Mercy and Da Kink in My Hair, have been developed from pilots commissioned by VisionTV.

Noted series

Mosaic series 360° Vision A New Beginning Aspire TV W.I.U. Des Pardes Food for Life Hour of Power Nawa Rasta Nawi Soch Reflections on Islam Taur Punjab Di Visions of Pakistan TV Visions of Punjab

Cornerstone series 'Allo 'Allo! Emily of New Moon Jeeves and Wooster Last of the Summer Wine Murder, She Wrote Quantum Leap The Waltons Twice in a Lifetime Waiting for God Yes Minister

• Note: This is only a partial list of programs listed as of June 2008.

History and viewership

Licensed in December 1987 by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the channel was launched in 1988 and was initially one of Canada's more popular cable channels. However, with the proliferation of new cable channels, and with VisionTV lacking clout with cable carriers due to it being owned by a one channel operation owned by a not-for-profit organization rather than a large commercial entity operating many channels, the service has been moved up the dial by carriers and become less available to audiences causing a drop in its viewership.

Network vice-president Rita Deverell, who hosted interstitial segments between programs, was the network's best-known on-air personality from its launch until she left in 2002 to work for APTN.

Some evangelical Christian denominations view the station as liberal in orientation, and thus prefer more evangelically oriented operations such as the Crossroads Television System.

External links

• VisionTV
• Broadcaster with Vision profile from For A Change magazine