GlassBOX Television has recently announced its acquisition of CTVglobemedia cable channel travel + escape, for “an undisclosed sum.”

This is the latest CTVglobemedia channel to be offloaded.  SexTV and Drive-In Classics were previously sold to Corus Entertainment in 2009, becoming W Movies and The Sundance Channel in the process.  The CRTC has not yet approved the sale of travel + escape to GlassBOX.

GlassBOX made a successful pitch to the CRTC last year for TREK TV, which treads travel + escape’s current ground.  t + e is a canny acquisition by GlassBOX, since it’s the first channel GlassBOX won’t have to build from scratch.

travel + escape has a long history.  The original broadcasting licence slotted t + e as Travel TV.  CTV Travel launched on September 7, 2001.  On October 30, 2006, CTV Travel was rebranded travel + escape, as part of an effort to appeal to a younger audience.

To be honest, travel + escape is one of CTVglobemedia’s bastard children.  I’m amazed it still exists.  OLN duplicates much of what t + e does on a larger cable platform.  It will be interesting to see what GlassBOX does with its new acquisition, assuming the CRTC approves this deal.

This comes on the heels of CTVglobemedia’s relaunch of two of its cable channels.  CourtTV Canada will become Investigation Discovery, while Discovery Civilization will become Discovery Science.  It’s nice to see CTVgm clean house, even if everything it does right now is to modernize the Discovery brand in Canada.  I wonder if CTVglobemedia will let go of TV Land and/or BookTelevision next.

The Conventioneers (BiteTV: Tuesdays, 9:00 PM ET/Saturdays and Sundays, noon ET) is the first BiteTV series I’ve ever reviewed – indeed, seen.  I am familiar with Jason Agnew through his work with Live Audio Wrestling, but The Conventioneers is a blank to me.

The Conventioneers tries to make The National Job Fair & Training Expo in Toronto interesting, with marginal success.  While Matt Chin and Jason Agnew aren’t bad hosts, the humour is at times forced.  This might be due to the choice of venue, since it’s The National Job Fair & Training Expo.  Such buttoned-down affairs aren’t normally the place for weirdos – not the obvious kinds, anyway.

The Conventioneers is best when Chin and Agnew embarrass themselves for the sake of the show.  Sadly, all “Job Fair” offers is Chin dancing at a New Brunswick-style ‘kitchen party’ and harassing a registered nurse.  The demo reel attached to the screener I received looks much more appealing, as it has Chin “rebranding” the CHIN Picnic.  The show’s always more fun when Chin gets kicked out of a convention.

I don’t think The Conventioneers is malicious in its presentation.  Chin and Agnew are obnoxious at times, which should be expected on a show like this.  The killer segment that would make “Job Fair” good just isn’t there.  The New Brunswick kiosk?  The man representing said kiosk is a PR jockey, but he’s not selling a bullshit product.

“Job Fair” isn’t the best introduction to Chin and Agnew’s brand of industry-based prankery.  Making fun of the recession, which may or may not have ended as per the stock jockeys’ drunken ramblings, is a good idea.  The episode just doesn’t work for me.  The Conventioneers could have picked something less low-key, like a multi-level marketing seminar.

The Conventioneers isn’t something I’d watch every week, but it does its job.  It’s a low-budget show with a novel idea, annoying high-strung fans and tight-assed business people on purpose.  At the end of the day, it’s hard for me to hate the show.  I’m sure it’s not eating government funds like Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town and Shattered are.

As an aside, how many people actually go through the Canada Television Fund/Canada Media Fund Broadcaster Performance Envelopes to see how much certain shows cost the Canadian taxpayer?  It’s genuinely interesting reading.  This doesn’t take federal and provincial tax credits into account, but wow, does Canada ever fund a lot of documentaries.  If The Conventioneers costs more than the Dunce Bucket pilot to produce (i.e., if the show costs more than $75,000 an episode), something’s gone horribly wrong.