holdings both within and across media and to pursue a strategy that emphasizes convergence and economies of scale as well as achieve vertical integration of its print and television services. Like other multimedia conglomerates such as Time Warner or Universal-Vivendi, Quebecor has largely acquired its holdings through corporate buyouts and mergers. Quebecor’s television holdings have largely resulted from the company’s purchase of Groupe Videotron Ltee. in October 2000, although its exploitation of the television medium dates back to the early 1950s.

Publishing magnate Pierre Peladeau founded Quebecor in 1965. Peladeau had begun his career in 1950 as a publisher of community newspapers in Montreal. In 1955 Peladeau launched Nouvelles et Points, the first of a series of weekly entertainment magazines, which focused heavily on the burgeoning Francophone television industry and its celebrities. Over the years, Peladeau’s magazines and newspapers would carve out a niche in Quebec by devoting significant coverage to French-Canadian stars and TV series. In 1964 Peladeau started Le Journal de Montreal, which would become the largest French-language daily in North America. The newspaper emulated local television news by using an abundance of colorful and sensational photographs accompanied by short articles and by devoting a significant amount of space to local sports and culture.

Over the years, Quebecor’s publishing empire grew, expanding beyond Quebec into the rest of Canada and the United States and eventually the world. Today, Quebecor is the world’s largest commercial printer, operating 160 plants in 17 countries and employing 39,000 people worldwide. The corporation also owns Sun Media, the second-largest newspaper group in Canada with eight metropolitan dailies, eight community dailies, and 175 weekly newspapers, and it remains the largest magazine publisher in Quebec. Additionally, Quebecor owns Videotron, the largest cable TV provider in Quebec with an estimated 1.4 million subscribers as of 2003. Videotron is also one of the largest Internet service providers in Canada. Videotron subsidiary SuperClub Videotron is the leading video rental and sales chain in Quebec with over 170 locations. Finally, Quebecor also owns and operates TVA, the top general-interest network in Quebec, maintaining a market share of approximately 35 percent.

With the purchase of Videotron Ltee. in 2000, Quebecor not only expanded into the world of cable and Internet services but also acquired a major stake in the development of interactive television. Videotron operates the illico digital interactive television system, which currently has 114,000 subscribers. Illico allows subscribers to access e-mail and surf the Internet through their television set, as well as participate in specially designed chat rooms and newsgroups unique to the interactive service. It also provides easy access to home shopping, creating new synergies between television programs and ancillary markets for the products they feature. Viewers are alerted to the availability for purchase of particular fashions, furniture, and accessories shown on select programs. Quebecor has identified interactive television as key to its media convergence strategy. According to Quebecor’s website, “[interactive television] will crystallize the synergies among the company’s media properties, giving advertisers a multitude of cross-promotion opportunities and customers a host of innovations and value-added interactive services.”

In September 2001 Quebecor added the TVA group to its conglomerate. In order to own the lucrative television channel, Quebecor was first required to sell off its holdings in TQS, which it had owned since 1997. Under Canadian law, companies cannot own more than one broadcast channel in the same market, though they can own multiple newspapers and operate various services within a single market. TVA is the largest private-sector producer and broadcaster of French-language programming in North America. Ten stations reaching the majority of French-speaking households in Quebec as well as the rest of Canada carry TVA’s signal. The TVA network owns six of those ten stations. Additionally, TVA International was founded in 1997 when the TVA group bought Motion International, which has since become the leading distributor of Canadian programming in Canada. With the addition of TVA International, the company has achieved full vertical integration of its television holdings. Finally, TVA has a significant interest in specialty cable channels, launching Le Canal Nouvelles TVA, a 24-hour all-news station, in 1998, and partnering to create Canal Evasion, a Frenchlanguage travel and tourism specialty channel, and Canal Indigo, a French-language pay-per-view channel. TVA also owns 50 percent of HSS Canada, a leading producer of infomercials, and has launched Club TVAchat, a French-language equivalent of the Home Shopping Network.