Moses Znaimer

Moses Znaimer, media executive, promoter, actor (b at Kulab, Tajikistan, 1942). Moses Znaimer is responsible for such Canadian Specialty channels as CITV-TV, Much Music, MusiquePlus, MusiMAX, MuchmoreMusic, Bravo, SexTV and VisionTV, and is President EO of MZmedia, which operates 96.3FM, a Toronto classical music Station. Znaimer is the son of Jewish parents who, fleeing Hitler's armies, immigrated to Montréal, Qué in 1948. Znaimer majored in political science at McGill (1963) and Harvard (1965). His career began with CBC Radio and Television in Montréal and Ottawa as a television host, director and producer; most notably with Cross-Canada Checkup. Feeling constrained by CBC's corporate environment, Znaimer and partners founded the freewheeling City-TV in Toronto in 1972, and in the mid-1980s the Much Music video music channel and Musique Plus, the French-language equivalent.

See a young Moses Znaimer in a vintage clip from the afternoon show Take 30 with Adrienne Clarkson and Paul Soles. From YouTube.

Video not working? Report a broken link.
Bravo, a Canadian arts channel, was his project in the early 1990s and became the most successful of the early specialty channels in Canadian cable TV. He devised the concept of a wired environment (installing video cabling throughout the building ) used at the current City-TV and Much Music locations. Znaimer believed this concept was appropriate for young audiences and that it could promote education. In 1995, he was instrumental in purchasing the Alberta government's public educational broadcaster, ACCESS. His new Learning Skills Television of Alberta incorporated the wired environment and proved to be highly successful.

In 2002, he retired from television, but in 2008 launched Zoomer magazine, aimed at adults over 50. In 2009, he acquired Vision TV, a collection of multicultural and religious channels.

In other areas, he appeared in the films Atlantic City, The Best Revenge, Being Julia, and promoted the play Tamara, (describes as a new king of theatrical presentation, "a story you follow from room to room") and the attraction Tour of the Universe. In 1992 he was part of a group that failed to obtain a licence for a fifth British TV channel. In 1995, he wrote and produced TVTV: The Television Revolution, a 3-hour program devoted to the impact of television on the lives of Canadians which he insisted "represents the triumph of television over print: print created illiteracy, television is democratic. Everyone gets it." Internationally, he licensed Mucha Music in Spain and Argentina, JYRKI in Finland and CITY-tv in Barcelona and Bologna.

Znaimer was given the Queen's Jubilee Medal in 2002, the GOVERNOR GENERAL'S PREFORMING ARTS AWARD for lifetime artistic achievement in 2005 and the ORDER OF CANADA in 2006. His collection of antique television sets was donated to the Cinématèque québécoise in 2006.

Author DAVID P. SIMPSON

Links to Other Sites
Znaimer gives us Zoomer
This news article thumbs through the pages of Moses Znaimer's magazine "Zoomer." From canada.com.

The MZTV Museum of Television
This multimedia “Timeline of Television” traces the development of the television industry in Canada, the US, and in Europe. Highlights television shows and personalities from the past. Also features an extensive online exhibit of old television receivers. From Moses Znaimer’s MZTV Museum of Television in Toronto.

Atlantic City
The IMDb page for the movie "Atlantic City" which featured many Canadians on screen and behind the scenes.