TATV was a Canadian French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 cable television

Cable television

Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

 classified ad service

Classified advertising

Classified advertising is a form of advertising which is particularly common in newspapers, online and other periodicals which may be sold or distributed free of charge...

 available exclusively on cable in Québec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

. TATV was owned by Astral Media

Astral Media

Astral Media Inc. is a Canadian media corporation. It is Canada's largest radio broadcaster with 83 radio stations in eight provinces, and is a major player in premium and specialty television in Canada, including The Movie Network, Super Écran, Family, Teletoon, Canal D, Canal Vie, VRAK.TV,...

.

TATV originally launched in 1982 as Télé-Annonces. It was rebranded as TATV on June 6, 2006.

Format

TATV was an illustrated classified advertising service, offering viewers and businesses the means to sell goods and services via television and the Internet. TATV was primarily a regionalised service, covering 17 different regions in Quebec, each being served by a local TATV channel.

TATV was classified as a teleshopping service by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and, thus, was exempt from requiring a CRTC-issued licence to operate and most other CRTC requirements that pay TV and specialty channels are subject to.

Closure

On August 19, 2008, Astral announced that it would seek the closure of TATV, effective immediately. The company stated the growing market share of classified ads using the free Internet model, coupled with the fact that classified ads are not one of the company's core businesses, were the reasons for the closure of TATV. On September 3 of that year, TATV was taken off the air.