Much (TV channel)

Much is a Canadian English language discretionary specialty channel. Owned by Bell Media, the channel primarily airs general entertainment programming targeting a teenage and young adult audience. It is headquartered at 299 Queen Street West in downtown Toronto, formerly billed on-air as the "MuchMusic World Headquarters". This channel was originally launched on August 31, 1984, as MuchMusic, under the ownership of CHUM Limited, the owner of Citytv Toronto, though "Much" has been the branding most commonly seen on-air since 1997. In 2006, Bell Globemedia acquired MuchMusic and its parent CHUM Limited, but regulatory limits in media ownership forced CHUM to sell off the Citytv stations to avoid conflicts with CTV stations in the same markets. CTVglobemedia retained the ownership of MuchMusic along with CP24 and the small market A-Channel stations. Much was acquired yet again by Bell Media in 2011. This channel originally focused on music programming, including blocks of music videos and original series focusing on Canadian musicians. Due to shrinking interest in music television because of the growth of online platforms, MuchMusic had increasingly focused on non-music programming targeting a young adult audience, such as comedy, films, and reality shows, and the network cancelled the majority of its music programming in the 2010s due to budget and staffing cuts. This channel was officially renamed "Much" in 2013 in reflection of its decreasing reliance on music-related programming. From 2021 onward, the "MuchMusic" branding has been used exclusively for its digital media network, which operates in parallel with the linear "Much" TV channel. Since its launch, MuchMusic had expanded globally such as the United States in 1994 (now known as Fuse), Europe and beyond. This channel began to launch multiple spinoffs throughout its existence under the Much brand such as MuchMoreMusic in 1998 targeting older adult demographic and a suite...