Content area
Full Text
TORONTO Coming out has been tricky for Canada's PrideVision, the world's first gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender digital channel.
The 3-year-old channel has struggled to persuade platforms to carry it, despite its category one license that mandates carriage on cable and satellite.
It's been a cautionary tale for fledgling gay channels worldwide, according to one of PrideVision's owners, Les Tomlin.
"Our model was closely followed as an example of what didn't work as opposed to what did work," Tomlin says.
Now it's set for an April 7 relaunch that will see it split in two.
OUTtv will become the new place to see lifestyle programming, while gay porn will move to pay channel Hard.
PrideVision has had a tough time ever since original owners Headline Media Group and Alliance Atlantis Communications launched it in September 2001.
Platforms, wary of the content, made viewers opt-in for the free preview period, banished it to the spectrum's...