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.