When Slava Levin took to the airwaves in 2004, he set out to create a market for broadcast content in a variety of languages, and bring a taste of home to communities across the country.

Slava Levin sits in the control room of Ethnic Channels Group [http://www.ethnicchannels.com], hands folded confidently on his knee, surveying a wall of television screens displaying the current offings of his broadcast empire.

On the more than 40 televisions currently flickering with life, there are no shows that the average North American-raised viewer would recognize: no Gossip Girl, none of the frenzied banter of CNN, and nobody dancing with the stars. Instead, there are sitcoms starring middle-aged Eastern European men and women, white-clad cricket players and the fierce on-ice battles of a Russian hockey league. On one screen, panellists on a low-budget talk show engage in a serious discussion about the Middle East.

Outside, in the reception area of the company’s North Toronto office and production studio, Levin greets his visitors in front of a wall lined with 31 framed CRTC licences that represent some of the international content his company has distributed in Canada over the past six years. “We’re not a mom-and-pop operation, but we’re not the CBC,” says the company’s 42-year-old chief executive officer.

Since 2004, Ethnic Channels has been bringing international programming to Canadian viewers, licensing content from Russia, Greece, Vietnam and various other countries, and distributing 26 digital channels through Rogers Cable, Bell TV, Telus, Shaw and MTS.

You would think that becoming an ethnic broadcaster in Canada would be a no-brainer. By 2031, one in three Canadians will belong to a visible minority group, and one in four will be foreign-born, according to Statistics Canada. There are 32 ethnic communities in Canada with populations of more than 100,000, and 10 with more than a million.

But Levin says Canadian regulators have not made things easy for the industry’s “third-language” providers-those who cater to viewers whose first language is neither English nor French. Ethnic Channels must comply with CRTC guidelines, producing its own Canadian content and recording every minute of programming as mandated by the regulator. Foreign competitors, meanwhile, can offer their content to viewers without following the same rules.

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