Salt + Light Television

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Salt + Light Television

Type	Digital cable specialty channel
Country	Canada
Availability	National
Owner	Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation
Launch date	July 2003
Website	saltandlighttv.org

Salt + Light Television is a Canadian category 2 digital cable specialty channel. Launched in July 2003, it is the first Catholic national television channel in Canada.

Owned by the not-for-profit Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and based in Toronto, Ontario, Salt + Light Television is supported by St. Joseph Communications, which is the largest privately owned communications company in Canada. Both St. Joseph and Salt + Light were founded by businessman Gaetano Gagliano.

The impetus for creating a national Catholic television station grew from the surge of spirituality that followed World Youth Day 2002 in Canada, and the name of the station derives itself from the theme of WYD 2002, "You are the salt of the earth... you are the light of the world" (Matthew 5:13-14). Indeed, the National Director of WYD 2002, Fr. Thomas Rosica, is the Chief Executive Officer of Salt + Light Television. The station also employs many young people both in front of, and behind, the camera -- distinguishing it from "older" Catholic networks such as EWTN.

Programs range from daily news and current events to special features and films. Most programming falls into one of five categories:

National and international stories of Catholic Action and Social Justice
Stories of Catholic Communities
Learning and Faith Development
Prayer, Devotion and Meditation
Catholic liturgy, including daily Mass and Vatican ceremonies

The channel provides programming in several languages including English, French and Italian, with more multilingual programming planned in the future.

Salt + Light Television has been endorsed by national and international Catholic leaders and organizations, including the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Vatican Television Center, and many departments of the Vatican.