Bravo! is fully owned by CHUM Limited of Toronto. CHUM’s media properties, once confined to a handful of radio holdings until the early 1970s, began to expand when it acquired Toronto’s CityTV. The company has grown to encompass 28 radio stations, 8 local television stations, and an additional 16 specialty channels. Although it shares a name and programming orientation with the American channel, there are no ownership ties between the two services. Some content is imported from the American channel. However, a condition of Bravo!’s original license, granted in 1994, stipulates that no more than 25 percent of its programming can originate with its U.S. counterpart. Bravo! is also required to broadcast at least 60 percent Canadian content during the broadcast year, with a minimum threshold of 50 percent domestically produced programming airing in prime time.

As with so many other enterprises under the CHUM banner, the genesis of Bravo! is generally traced to the fertile mind of the founding visionary behind CityTV, Moses Znaimer. Znaimer has been the guiding light behind a number of successful (and not infrequently controversial) innovations in Canadian and international broadcasting. Although financial struggles forced him to sell his shares in CityTV to CHUM, he continued to preside over the fortunes of the media company that coalesced and expanded around the station. One of his pet projects in the early 1990s was Bravo!, and he is billed as the executive producer of a number of the channel’s offerings.

CHUM’s television headquarters, located in a trendy neighborhood of Toronto, feature open “environments” where personalities and crews working for various channels are encouraged to roam about unhindered by traditional studio constraints, and even take to the streets. To make room for Bravo!, the building was renovated to include a small but acoustically sophisticated studio where, in this particular environment, artists’ performances and reflections are recorded for various shows.

Bravo! bills itself as “Canada’s 24-hour NewStyleArtsChannel” and, according to press releases issued by CHUM, is “dedicated to entertaining, stimulating and enlightening viewers who have a taste for a more complex television.” The lineup has included Canadian-produced programs such as “Live at the Rehearsal Hall” (performance and interviews), “Culture Warriors” (interview), “Bravo!News,” “Bravo! Bulletin Board,” and “Arts and Minds,” a show dedicated to an examination of the creative process. Over the years (and especially at the outset) the independent Toronto production company Sleeping Giant has been responsible for developing programs for Bravo! Canada. The weekly schedule is organized around the themes of dance, music, drama, literature, cinema, great performances, and the visual arts.

One unique facet of the channel’s license is the requirement that Bravo! must invest in Canadian content through a foundation now known as Bravo!FACT (originally the Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent in the Arts, or ArtsFACT). The idea had its origins in a similar initiative, called VideoFACT, that helped support the making of Canadian music videos for CHUM’s MuchMusic channel. Film and video makers are eligible to apply to Bravo!FACT for a maximum of $25,000 (Canadian) to defray up to half of the costs of a project. Bravo! also provides other assistance to successful grant applicants. The mandate is to “stimulate public interest in Canadian excellence in the arts, encourage the creation of new ways of presenting the arts on television, increase public recognition of Canadian artists and their works, and provide professional opportunities for film and video-makers.”

As of 2002, the foundation had provided some $4.5 million to more than 400 shorts aired on Bravo! Projects have also been screened, and earned awards, at film festivals and special events around the world. Although the investments seem impressive, and certainly make up one of the largest pools of funding for short works on serious topics in Canada, Bravo!’s support for independent film- and videomakers was the subject of some controversy when the channel’s license was renewed in 2000. According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, Bravo! had fallen behind in its payments to the foundation. For this reason the Commissions’ renewal was conditional upon Bravo! adding to the fund and meeting its future commitments (an annual expenditure of the greater part of $600,000, or five percent of the previous fiscal year’s gross revenues).

It is a rare feat for a Canadian specialty channel to claim a place among the top ten shows. Bravo! was able to accomplish this thanks to the popularity of its late-night American import Sex and the City. The program’s devotees have boosted Bravo!’s subscriptions. According to Matthew Fraser of the National Post, the success of Sex and the City may be part of a wider phenomenon that has seen Canadian viewers seek out high-quality drama on specialty channels such as Bravo! while deserting the poorer nightly fare offered up by conventional networks in the United States and simulcast in Canada. Fraser speculates that this trend, if it continues, may result in private Canadian networks diversifying their sources of content and even moving toward more in-house production after relying so heavily on American shows to fill prime-time slots. It would be ironic if an American show on a specialty channel accelerated the restructuring of Canada’s television industry, but the history of the country’s broadcasting system is full of contradictions and complications.