Salt + Light Television


Salt + Light Television is a Canadian multi-lingual Category B television channel owned by the not-for-profit Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and based in Toronto, Ontario. The channel broadcasts faith-based programming for Roman Catholics, which includes televised daily mass, documentaries, live event coverage, talk shows, and more. Programs are primarily broadcast in English, along with French, Italian, and Chinese languages.
The name of the station derives itself from the theme of World Youth Day 2002, "You are the salt of the earth... you are the light of the world," part of the Sermon on the Mount. The National Director of WYD 2002, Fr. Thomas Rosica, was the Chief Executive Officer of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation until his resignation on June 17, 2018 after numerous instances of plagiarism were revealed. Fr. Alan J. Fogarty, S.J., has been appointed Chief Executive Officer effective August 1, 2020.

History

In November 2001, Paolo Canciani was granted approval from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to launch Inner Peace Television Network, described as "a national ethnic Category 2 specialty television service devoted to providing religious programming from the single point-of-view of the Roman Catholic faith. The service will target Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Filipino, English, and French-speaking audiences. In addition to religious programming, the service will offer a limited amount of programming dealing with social and humanitarian issues."
Prior to the channel's launch, in 2002, ownership and control of the channel was transferred to a consortium, majority owned by St. Joseph Printing Limited.
The channel launched in July 2003 as Salt + Light Television and was quickly spun-off as a non-profit company under the ownership of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation, a newly-formed charitable organization ran by a board of directors, two of which were from the Gagliano family, who in turn controlled St. Joseph Printing Limited. Upon launch, the channel initially aired programming in English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; which has since changed to its current language list. In addition to television, Salt + Light publishes a magazine.
On June 1, 2017, the channel announced that it would be launching a high definition feed on June 4, 2017, initially with Telus Optik TV. Gabriel Chow, the developer of the GCatholic.org, is a contributor to the channel.