Next week will mark the start of upfront season for Canadian TV networks and specialty channels and I will update you whenever the new schedules come out. They have already made their acquisitions at the US upfronts last week and now it's a matter of organizing them into a workable schedule. The major networks do a great job in putting their lineups together to try to outdo each other but the various specialty channels seem to be stuck in a constant state of disarray and incompetence, particularly when it comes to the lack of vintage classic series that are provided to their ever-shrinking viewers. To give you some idea of what this is like, I have made for you a list of US sitcoms that I know of that are now currently airing on certain Canadian specialty and digital channels and you can see for yourselves how bad things really are:

All info from Wikipedia

ABC Spark - Canadian version of ABC Family

Baby Daddy, Chasing Life, The Fosters, Freak Out, Melissa & Joey, Roommates, State of Georgia, Switched at Birth, Young & Hungry

Boy Meets World, Cougar Town, Hope & Faith, Less Than Perfect, Life With Boys, The Middle, Mr Young, Rules Of Engagement


Bite TV - It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Little Mosque On The Prairie, Trailer Park Boys

CITY - Prime Time - Two Broke Girls, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Black-ish, Glenn Martin DDS, Modern Family, New Girl, Parks And Recreation, The Middle

CMT - Reba

Comedy Gold - The Bob Newhart Show, The David Steinberg Show, Full House, I Love Lucy, Kids In The Hall, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The New Addams Family, Newhart, Night Court, Rhoda, SCTV, Super Dave Osborne, Red Green, Wings, Who's The Boss?

Comedy Network - The Big Bang Theory, Corner Gas, Frasier, Red Green, Simpsons, Sullivan & Son, Sirens, Welcome To Sweden

Cosmopolitan TV - Charmed, Cougar Town, Rules Of Engagement, Sex And The City

CTV - Primetime - The Big Bang Theory, Hot In Cleveland, Mike & Molly

CTV Two - Primetime - Hot In Cleveland

DejaView - All In The Family, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Golden Girls, The Jeffersons, Major Dad, Married With Children, MASH, Quantum Leap, Roseanne, Three's Company

E! - Hot In Cleveland, Just Shoot Me, Saved By The Bell

Global - Primetime - Bob's Burgers, Family Guy, The Simpsons

History - MASH

Joy TV - Cheers, Laverne & Shirley, MASH, My Name Is Earl, Reba, The Simpsons

MTV2 - Malcolm In The Middle, Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Saved By The Bell

Much - The Cleveland Show, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, The Simpsons, South Park

M3 - Anger Management, The Goldbergs, Hot In Cleveland, Mike & Molly

Yes TV - formerly CTS - Family Ties, Full House



As you can see, we have nothing even remotely like Antenna TV or ME-TV up here. Even our so-called retro channels, DejaView and Comedy Gold, don't impress me very much, and I don't expect that to change very soon. It's just awful!!

Wow! Hope you guys get a better line up of good older shows there!

Although I live south of the border, I get Bell TV by satellite. I started subscribing in 2001 when a flood of new specialty channels started up - Lonestar, TV Land Canada, Mystery, etc. Canadian TV was great back then with so many classic shows.

Sadly, many of those channels are now gone or have changed their identity. I'm not a sitcom fan, but there were so many old westerns, dramas, and mysteries that it was well worth the price of a subscription. Now there is hardly anything other than sitcoms for the classic show fan.

If possible, it would be great if you could include channels with other classic shows, in addition to the sitcoms, in your list.

When I first started subscribing to the classic TV stations back in late 2006, the lineup was so much better.

DejaVu was a much better network.
ComedyGold used to be TVLand Canada, which was the weak link.
It became Comedy Gold in 2010(?), which initially was not a bad station, and now it's the worse it's been in it's short history.
And there used to be a western station called LoneStar.

Also, just this past fall, CTS (a religious station) became the crappy Yes Network. When it was CTS, we did get some classic TV.

Since I've been following classic TV since the 2000's, this is the worse it's ever been. Any wonder more and more people are cancelling their cable packages.

At least somewhere I found Marcus Welby reruns. I was very young when that was on originally, so I'm watching these episodes for the first time. I love watching it for the guest stars, both past and future stars.