By Peter Berton

MONTREAL – Canada is not known as a hotbed of sexual naughtiness. So perhaps it makes sense that the country’s first homegrown porn channel, Vanessa TV, is based in Montreal, Quebec. There is something about the French-Canadian sensibility that makes Montreal’s people more comfortable with sex than their Anglo-Canadian neighbors — and more adept at seizing the opportunity to titillate the Great White North.

YNOT recently spoke with Vanessa TV spokesperson Anne-Marie Losique to get the goods about the company.

YNOT.com: Give us a the basics about Vanessa TV.

Anne-Marie Losique: Vanessa TV is a 100-percent Canadian adult entertainment network. It is a monthly subscription channel available through the different providers in Canada, in French and in English.

It was first launched on the French market two years ago and now, since March 2013, has been made available in English. Vanessa On Demand will start May 1 with those same providers. Often, the on-demand service goes hand-in-hand with Vanessa TV to complete a global offer.

We put on air a lot of Canadian productions — probably 60 percent to 70 percent [of our total programming] — and for the rest [we offer] exclusive, high-quality productions in all genres: reality TV, sexy music clips, nude wrestling matches and more hardcore stuff.
The channel is erotic by day and explicit by night. We cover all the array of adult-oriented themes, from ultra-sophisticated to trashy amateur.

Who’s behind Vanessa TV?

We come from producing adult content. As we were selling a lot of our productions for years, we decided to start up our own network.

Eventually, the goal is to export this Canadian signal that is available in French and in English throughout the world, as there are outside signals imported here.

French Canada is seen as more sexually open than the rest of Canada. Is this why you launched Vanessa TV in Montreal?

We launched in French first because it was a known market for us, as we are foremost based in Quebec. As well, there is more of a structured [adult] industry over here than in the rest of Canada.

We believe in an adult market that crosses to mainstream, and in Quebec there is a certain openness to this idea. We were able to promote our new network on all mainstream media, which was fantastic.

What kinds of homegrown content are you producing?

We produce mainly softcore series whether it is variety, reality TV, documentaries or portrait shows. We have never produced XXX films because this is entirely another line of business. We occupy a specialized niche of high-quality softcore productions, which has worked very well for us.

What is the toughest aspect of distributing Vanessa TV through Canada’s cable and satellite providers?

The biggest challenge is not knowing anything about our audience, as they are the providers’ clients. So we don’t know when they are watching Vanessa, and for how long at a time. Running a business without any direct insight on it is quite a challenge.

Do Canadians prefer homegrown porn?

I know one thing, especially in Quebec: Local productions are the most popular by far. This is why we started our channel and brand it as Canadian. We are very proud of that fact.