Canal D is 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...

 Category A specialty channel

Specialty channel

A specialty channel can be a commercial broadcasting or non-commercial television channel which consists of television programming focused on a single genre, subject or targeted television market at a specific demographic....

 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,...

. Canal D focuses on documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 programming primarily in the form of documentary-style television series that focus on a variety of topics such as crime, biographies, nature, science, and more.

History

In June 1994, Premier Choix: TVEC Inc. (Astral) was granted approval for a television broadcasting licence by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) for a channel called Arts et Divertissement, described as a service modelled after the American service, A&E

A&E Network

The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...

, at that time. The proposed service was to focus on four main elements: documentaries (for which the service would primarily consist of), films, dramatic series, and arts programming.

The channel subsequently launched on January 1, 1995 as Canal D.

Noted series

• Ben et Jarrod: Le temps d'une molle
• Comédie Club Grand Rire
• Docu-D
• Fantômes chez les stars
  Celebrity Ghost Stories
  Celebrity Ghost Stories is a television show on BIO & A&E Network. It is a reality show that interviews various celebrities who have witnessed paranormal events at certain points in their lives.-Season 1 - ::...
  
  
• Gangland
  Gangland (TV series)
  Gangland is a documentary television series that airs on The History Channel. It usually airs on Thursday evenings although it has been known to arbitrarily change days every so often. Gangland explores the history of some of America's more notorious gangs. It premiered on November 1, 2007 with a...
  
  
• La guerre des enchères
  Storage Wars
  Storage Wars is a reality television series on the A&E Network that premiered in 2010. The show features auctioneers Dan Dotson and Laura Dotson, as well as auction hunters Dave Hester, Darrell Sheets, Barry Weiss, and Jarrod Schulz and Brandi Passante...
  
  
• Le convoi de l'extrême
  Ice Road Truckers
  Ice Road Truckers is a documentary-style reality television series that premiered on History on June 17, 2007.-History:In 2000, History aired a 46-minute episode titled "Ice Road Truckers" as part of the Suicide Missions series...
  
  
• Les bûcherons de l'extrême
  Swamp Loggers
  Swamp Loggers is an American reality television series on the Discovery Channel that follows the crew of Goodson's All Terrain Logging as they log the swamps of North Carolina .-Episodes:...
  
  
• Mayday
  Mayday (TV series)
  Mayday, also known as Air Crash Investigation in the United Kingdom, Australia and Asia and Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the United States, is a Canadian documentary television programme produced by Cineflix investigating air crashes, near-crashes and other disasters...
  
  
• Mythes urbains

• Note: series list is current as of November 2011.

Canal D HD

On October 30, 2006 Astral Media launched Canal D HD, a HD

High-definition television

High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

 simulcast of Canal D's standard definition

Standard-definition television

Sorete-definition television is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either enhanced-definition television or high-definition television . The term is usually used in reference to digital television, in particular when broadcasting at the same resolution as...

 feed.

International distribution

• Saint Pierre and Miquelon - distributed on SPM Telecom systems.