May 7, 2025 will remain as a black date in the media history of Quebec.
It is the day when Pierre Karl Péladeau said, with the coldness of a surgeon who announces the inevitable: TVA Sports could close its doors.
It is no longer a hypothesis, it is no longer a rumor: it is a mental preparation for the announced disaster. For the first time, Péladeau himself has publicly opened the door to this closure, and the shock wave is shaking not only the media industry, but all the economic fabric of Quebec.
“It should not be surprised that TVA Sports ceases its activities,” he said to his shareholders, in a sentence that resonates as a verbal death act.
A sentence delivered without emphasis, without flafla, but which hides a deep industrial drama. After more than $ 230 million in cumulative losses, Péladeau brandishes the last Latin metaphor: “Don’t Throw Good Money After”. In other words, TVA Sports has become a bottomless financial chasm.
And the figures do not lie. The TVA group unveiled losses of 20.3 million in the first quarter only. Its action, in free fall, reached the alarming floor of $ 0.75 per unit.
A historically low threshold, which made investors jump and triggered a storm of negative analysis. Adam Shine, from the National Bank financing, reduced the company’s note to “underperformance”, lowering the price targets at the same time to … $ 0.25. Humiliation.
And what about MELS studios? Acquired by VAT for 118 million, their value Today collapses at 32 million according to estimates.
A dramatic devaluation of 72 % in just a few years. Mels was supposed to be the group’s technological gem, the pivot of the production of high -level French -speaking content. Today, it is only a toxic asset weighed down by the slowdown in world production and the desertion of advertisers.
But what scandalizes even more is the growing shadow of interference and conflicts of interest that tainted this transaction from day one.
In December 2014, when the TVA group spent $ 118 million to acquire Global Vision – renamed from Studios Mels – this raised doubts in the financial environment.
The transaction was largely funded by an issue of subscription rights of around 100 million, a maneuver which massively diluted the minority shareholders. And it is there that the financial drama arrives: several of these shareholders shouted in injustice, openly denouncing the purchase price deemed exorbitant, but especially the troubled links between the members of the senior management of Quebecor and TVA group.
The strong man behind all this? Pierre Karl Péladeau himself. His double control of Quebecor control shareholder and direct influence on strategic VAT decisions aroused strong concerns.
Stephen Takacsy, Lester asset management – one of the largest minority shareholders in VAT – even speaks of “political interference”, a heavy accusation in the context of a listed company.
The AMF (the Autorité des Marchés Financiers) has opened a file, but finally concluded that the irregularities noted were more corporate law … before classifying the case.
In other words: no one has been held responsible. And the result is that the assets for which we paid 118 million is barely 32.
A financial chasm. An affront to small shareholders. And above all, a crying symbol of a majority shareholder who acts in favor of personal interests rather than those of minority shareholders.
This operation, more than anything, sums up the climate of mistrust that surrounds today TVA group and explains why its market value collapsed.
This financial disaster is combined with a human disaster. TVA Sports is more than a station. It is a team, a story, a dream of media competition against RDS.
But from the signing of the sub-library contract in 2013, the fate was sealed. While TVA Sports was betting on a rapid return from the Nordic and on a competitive Canadian, the Habs collapsed in reconstruction and the Nordics have never resurfaced. Twelve years of broadcasting… for twelve years of sporting collapse.
The result? A program that has never managed to convince. A controversial analysis duo with Patrick Lalim and Félix Séguin, an unloved animator in Jean-Charles Lajoie, increasingly aggressive editorial drifts, viewers who flee en masse to RDS or Sportsnet.
The nail? The inability of TVA Sports to capitalize on the arrival of Ivan Demidov, where it was the images of independent sites that dominated the web.
On the other side of the spectrum, RDS, despite a more classic presentation, has kept its customers. TVA Sports, focusing on sensationalism, has lost everything.
What we experience today is more than a crisis. It is the slow agony of a business model unable to adapt. Pierre Karl Péladeau speaks of advertising collapse, disaffection for the TV model. He is right.
But he forgets to say that TVA Sports has never been able to create a real culture, a clean identity, a bond of trust with the public. The closure, if it takes place in 2026, will not be the fruit of a plot. It will be a statement of failure. Cold. Brutal.
The shareholders are furious. They see their investment melt. They see an empire once flamboyant losing its jewels one by one. It is only a question of weeks before TVA is forced to resign itself.
Management may well speak of digital transformation, alternative platform, convergence. But without flagship content, without hockey, all this is only wind.
And that may be that, the most tragic. Because Quebec needs media diversity. He needs strong, creative, daring competition. He needs two voices, not one. If TVA Sports dies, it will also be the end of an era when the French -speaking sports press could compete, dream, oppose.
The countdown has started. The summer of 2026 will ring the death knell. And this time, it is not a competitor that crashes the nail. It is his own creator, Pierre Karl Péladeau, who admits, in a word, that the game is over.
