About All TV

All TV

Overview

All TV (Korean: 얼 TV) is a Canadian Korean-language specialty television channel headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. It serves Korean-speaking viewers across Canada with a schedule that mixes programming imported from South Korea with programs produced locally in Toronto. The channel's imported programming has been supplied principally by MBC, one of South Korea's major broadcasters, while its Canadian-made output has included a daily newscast, talk shows, cooking programs and a real estate show aimed at Korean immigrants and their families.

The channel operates as an exempt Category B third-language service. That status matters to understanding what All TV is today: it began life as a licensed specialty channel, and in 2019 the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved its conversion to an exempt service, after which its broadcasting licence was revoked because exempt services do not require one. All TV remains available to subscribers today — Rogers, for example, currently offers both All TV and its sister channel All TV K as add-ons to its television packages — which makes it one of the longest-running Korean-language television services in Canada, on the air since 2001.

History

All TV was launched on September 15, 2001, by Toronto entrepreneur Jang Sung Lee, who remains its owner; the operating company is All TV Inc. The channel was originally licensed by the CRTC as an ethnic Category 2 (later reclassified Category B) national specialty service devoted to the Korean-speaking community. A May 2001 CRTC notice referred to the applicant as "ALL TV INC. (formerly Jang Sung Lee (OBCI))," reflecting its origin as an individually held undertaking that was incorporated as the service launched.

Through the 2000s, All TV Inc. expanded its regulatory footprint in Korean-language television. In April 2005, the CRTC approved two further Category 2 licences for the company, All TV-KBS (Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2005-166) and All TV-SBS (Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2005-165), each proposing a service built around programming from a major Korean broadcaster — KBS, South Korea's public broadcaster, and SBS, one of its largest commercial networks — with schedules proposed at roughly 90 percent Korean-language and 10 percent English-language programming. In October 2007, the Commission also approved All TV-Arirang (Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2007-369), a proposed general-interest service aimed at the English-speaking Korean community in Canada. Not all of these licensed concepts reached air in their original form, but the decisions show how actively All TV Inc. worked to consolidate Korean-language television in Canada during the decade.

The channel's programming supply changed over time. In December 2010, All TV announced a content agreement with SBS, and SBS programming began airing on December 13, 2010; by 2018, however, the channel no longer carried SBS programming, and its Korean imports were again centred on MBC. On July 18, 2013, All TV launched All TV HD, a high-definition simulcast of the main channel, which was carried on Bell Fibe TV.

A significant regulatory change came in 2019. On January 18, 2019, the CRTC approved All TV Inc.'s request to convert All TV from a licensed Category B specialty service to an exempted Category B third-language service, and its licence was revoked accordingly. Exemption is a lighter regulatory regime available to small third-language services, and the conversion did not interrupt the channel's availability to viewers.

Content and Coverage

All TV's schedule combines imported Korean programming with Canadian local production. The imported component comes from MBC and covers the genres that anchor Korean television schedules: drama series, entertainment and variety programs, news and current affairs from Korea, sports and children's programming. Rogers' current channel description similarly summarises All TV as offering "premium local and international Korean programming," including daily news, entertainment, sports, dramas, education and children's programs.

Local programming has been a defining part of the service since its early years. All TV built a broadcast centre in Toronto — described in reference sources as including three studios, ten video editing suites and sound recording facilities, located in the Korean Cultural Centre in Toronto — from which it has produced a daily newscast covering Canadian and community news in Korean, along with talk shows, cooking shows and a real estate program. Those genres reflect the practical information needs of an immigrant audience: settlement, housing, food and community affairs, alongside entertainment from home.

The sister channel, All TV K, complements the main service. It carries programming from KBS World, the international service of South Korea's public broadcaster KBS, with English subtitles, together with some local Canadian content; its schedule includes KBS news, Korean dramas and documentaries. All TV K therefore gives viewers a public-broadcaster-oriented alternative to the MBC-based main channel, and its subtitling makes it accessible to second-generation viewers and mixed-language households.

Audience and Reach

All TV is a national service, distributed beyond its Toronto base, and its audience is Canada's Korean-speaking community. That community is concentrated in the Toronto area: the 2016 Census counted 33,665 people with Korean as a mother tongue in the City of Toronto alone, with large Korean-speaking populations also in the suburban municipalities along the Yonge Street corridor in North York, Thornhill and Richmond Hill, and further communities in cities such as Vancouver. A Korean-language channel with a daily local newscast addresses viewers who follow events in South Korea closely but also need Canadian news and practical information in their first language.

Because All TV is a discretionary specialty channel rather than a basic service, viewers subscribe to it individually or through multicultural theme packages offered by television providers. Its reach should therefore be understood as that of a long-established niche service: no audited subscriber figures for the channel are published in the sources consulted for this profile, and none are claimed here.

Digital Presence

All TV's official website is alltv.ca, published in Korean, consistent with the channel's first-language audience. The site is the channel's own point of contact for program information and subscription enquiries. The channel's digital footprint otherwise runs mainly through its distributors: Rogers maintains current channel pages for both All TV and All TV K describing their programming and explaining how to add them to a Rogers Xfinity TV package, and the services continue to be listed among Canada's multicultural specialty channels. That distributor presence, kept current by Rogers, is also the clearest public confirmation that both channels remain in active distribution.

Ownership and Organisation

All TV is owned by Jang Sung Lee and operated by All TV Inc. of Toronto. Lee founded the service in 2001 and built it into the centre of a small Korean-language television group comprising the main All TV channel, All TV HD and All TV K. The company's regulatory history — the original 2001 licence, the additional Category 2 approvals of 2005 and 2007, the interventions it filed in competitors' licensing proceedings, and its 2019 conversion to exempt status — is documented in CRTC decisions spanning nearly two decades, an unusually complete public record for a small ethnic broadcaster.

The company's role in preserving Korean public-broadcaster programming in Canada is part of that record. When Seabridge Media, which had operated a KBS World channel in Canada under its own licence, shut down in early 2009, All TV stepped in and launched its own KBS World service on Rogers Cable in July 2009 so that the programming would remain available in Canada; Seabridge's licence was formally revoked on December 2, 2009. The All TV version of the service was renamed All TV K in late 2012 (some listings date the new name to 2013) and was added to Bell Fibe TV on July 18, 2013.

Contact and Availability

All TV and All TV K are available in Canada through television service providers, including Rogers, which currently offers both channels as additions to its TV packages, and All TV HD was carried on Bell Fibe TV. Availability and channel positions vary by provider and package, so viewers should check their provider's channel guide or the Rogers channel pages for current details. The channel's own website, alltv.ca (in Korean), is its official online home for program and contact information. As an exempt third-language Category B service since January 2019, All TV operates under the CRTC's exemption framework for such services rather than under an individual broadcasting licence.