About MAtv

MAtv

Overview

MAtv is the community television service operated by Vidéotron for its television subscribers in Quebec. It is not a single channel in the conventional sense but a small network of local community channels, each serving one of the regions where Vidéotron provides cable service: Montreal–Longueuil, Quebec City–Lévis, Saguenay, Sherbrooke, Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Sorel-Tracy, Granby, Rivière-du-Loup and Gatineau–Outaouais. In Montreal the service is found at channel 9 on Vidéotron's illico platform, and at channel 609 in high definition, and it is available only to Vidéotron customers — it is not carried by competing distributors and does not broadcast over the air. MAtv describes itself, in its own published mission, as "the public space powered by Videotron": a citizen space whose purpose is to give members of the community access to a place for participation, expression and distribution of their own content, to promote local interests and to support emerging talent. Programming is mainly in French, reflecting the communities it serves, although the Montreal channel has carried a block of English-language programming since 2015. The service is the current form of a community television operation whose roots at Vidéotron go back to the 1970s, and it remains in active production: current television listings carry its regional schedules, and in the autumn of 2026 the channel was recording new episodes of a citizen show before a public audience in Sorel-Tracy.

History

Community television has been part of Vidéotron's cable service since the 1970s, under a succession of names. The service was known at various times as Télé Communautaire and as TCV Vidéotron in the late 1990s, then as Canal Vox — the "voice" channel, a name meant to signal the community's voice — and, from 2007, simply as Vox. On 19 November 2012, Vox was relaunched as MAtv, with a stated plan to place more emphasis on viewer-produced programming. The new name did not end debate about how the channel was run. In September 2013, Vidéotron applied to the CRTC for permission to launch a separate English-language community channel for greater Montreal, to be called MYtv. At the same time, a community coalition, Independent Community TV (ICTV), complained to the regulator that Vidéotron was failing in its community television responsibilities and asked that operation of the Montreal channel be transferred to it, citing the heavy involvement of Vidéotron staff in production and the networking of programs across all of Vidéotron's Quebec community channels instead of programming made specifically for Montreal. In February 2015, the CRTC issued its decision: it agreed with ICTV that MAtv was not in compliance — it found that access programming made up about 30 per cent of the Montreal schedule against a licence requirement of 45 per cent, and that programs hosted and produced by professional broadcasters had been counted as access programming — but it declined to transfer the licence to ICTV. It authorized the English-language channel, imposed new compliance conditions on MAtv, and ordered the channel to establish a community advisory board. Rather than launch MYtv as a separate service, Vidéotron added English programming to MAtv in Montreal: five new English programs launched in September 2015, and the channel devoted roughly 20 per cent of its Montreal schedule to English-language programming, a share the channel presented as roughly matching the anglophone proportion of Montreal's population. In November 2017, MAtv marked the fifth anniversary of the MAtv identity; marking the occasion, Vidéotron noted that its community television service had by then been involved in citizen television for more than forty years.

Programming and Content

MAtv's schedule is built around projects proposed by citizens, community organizations and local creators, supplemented by programs produced by the channel's own regional teams. When it launched a new slate of citizen programs in January 2018, the channel stated that more than 50 per cent of its programming came from projects originating in the community — its own figure, given at the time — and that the number of projects submitted by citizens each year was steadily growing. The resulting mix is deliberately local and varied: community magazine and interview programs, public affairs, arts and culture coverage, heritage and history series, outdoor and regional-interest shows, school and youth productions, religious and community-access programs, and local sport. Documented examples from the channel's published schedules include LeZarts, an arts magazine made with volunteer reporters covering exhibitions, theatre, dance and cultural events; Figures marquantes de notre histoire, a history series hosted by historian Éric Bédard built around talks organized by the Fondation Lionel-Groulx at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec; Entre Parenthèses, a conversation series in which two guests discuss current and sometimes taboo subjects; and a block of morning and late-afternoon fitness programs such as Pause tonique, Cardio55+ and Yoga doux. English-language programs on the Montreal channel have included the current-affairs program City Life, modelled on the channel's French public-affairs format, Montreal Billboard, an interview program with people from local organizations, and Waves of Change, a documentary series about two hundred years of Quebec's English-speaking community. Regional feeds carry programming made in and for their own areas: current listings for the Quebec City service, for example, include regional magazine and religious programming, hunting and fishing programs, a school-produced youth show and coverage of the Coupe MAtv curling event. The citizen-production model is still visibly at work in 2026: in October 2026 the Sorel-Tracy channel invited the public to attend the recording of three episodes of Anekdotes en stock!, a cabaret-style show hosted by Sophie Côté and Yves Allard in which local guests tell stories on stage accompanied by musicians — access television in its most literal form, recorded in a café-théâtre in front of the community it is made for.

Audience and Reach

MAtv's reach is defined by Vidéotron's cable footprint rather than by ratings: the channels are available only to Vidéotron television subscribers in the nine local markets the service lists, within the province of Quebec. No audience ratings are published for MAtv, and community channels in Canada are not measured the way conventional and specialty channels are; the service's purpose under the CRTC's community television framework is local reflection — programming made by and for the community served — rather than the size of the audience it accumulates. Like other distributor-operated community channels in Canada, the service is supported through the regulated contributions that broadcasting distributors direct to community programming, which is what allows small-market channels such as those in Rivière-du-Loup or Sorel-Tracy to maintain local production at all. Programs also travel within the network: productions from one MAtv region can be shown on the service's other channels, a practice that extends the reach of local productions across Quebec while remaining a point of regulatory attention, as the CRTC's 2015 decision showed, when it comes to how much of a given channel's schedule is truly local and community-produced.

Digital Presence

The service's online home is matv.ca, which publishes the channels' schedules, program information and information for citizens who want to propose a project. Vidéotron's corporate site states that MAtv programs are available on demand through its illico and Helix television platforms, with catch-up viewing also offered through matv.ca, so that subscribers can watch community programming after its scheduled broadcast. Television listings services continue to publish day-by-day schedules for the regional MAtv channels, including the Quebec City service, which is how the channels' current lineups are visible outside the Vidéotron system.

Ownership and Organisation

MAtv is operated by Vidéotron, the Quebec telecommunications and cable company — Vidéotron ltée is a Québecor Média company, part of the Québecor group — and the channels are a service of that distribution business rather than an independent broadcaster. Production is organized regionally, with local teams in each of the markets served working with citizen producers, volunteers and community organizations; a senior director has overseen the service (Steve Desgagné held the role of senior director for MAtv when its 2018 citizen-programming slate was announced). Following the CRTC's February 2015 decision, the channel was required to operate under additional compliance conditions and to maintain a community advisory board, structures intended to keep the service accountable to the communities it serves.

Contact and Availability

MAtv is available exclusively to Vidéotron television subscribers in Quebec, at channel 9 (channel 609 in high definition) on the illico platform in Montreal, with program schedules, regional channel information and details on how to propose a citizen project published at matv.ca. Programs are also offered on demand through Vidéotron's illico and Helix platforms. The channel does not publish a general public business email address, and none is listed in this profile.