year on four applications for new national pay television licences from different groups. Each applicant claimed that they would commit to invest and develop more Canadian-produced programming content. On May 18, 2006, the CRTC announced that had accepted an application by Allarco Entertainment, while the other three were rejected. This approved application effectively ended The Movie Network/Movie Central duopoly in Canada. On November 2, 2007, the new service was launched as Super Channel. On November 19, 2015, Movie Central owner Corus Entertainment announced that as a result of a strategic review, it had decided to exit the pay TV business to concentrate on its national specialty channels, and would discontinue Movie Central along with Encore Avenue. To that end, Corus reached an agreement with Bell through which TMN became a national service once again on March 1, 2016, with Movie Central customers automatically transitioning to TMN. TMN Encore also expanded nationally for the first time, and Bell took over full operation of HBO Canada (previously a jointly-operated multiplex channel of both TMN and Movie Central). Although Bell did not buy the Movie Central licence, it paid Corus C$211 million in exchange for Corus' assistance in allowing TMN's national expansion. The CRTC had quietly given administrative approval (i.e., approved without a request for public comment) to applications to allow TMN and TMN Encore to operate nationally in July 2015, so no further regulatory approval was required. This meant that Bell was not required to fund a public benefits package worth 10% of the transaction value, as would typically be required by the CRTC in the event of a licence transfer. On January 23, 2018, Bell Media announced that it had reached new licensing deals with Lionsgate and subsidiary company Starz Inc., under which the former held Canadian pay television window rights to the latter's releases and TMN Encore was rebranded as a Canadian Starz channel in 2019. Merger with CraveTV, relaunch as a hybrid VOD service In October 2018, a Rogers Cable service bulletin stated that beginning in November, The Movie Network subscribers would begin to receive Bell's over-the-top subscription service CraveTV as part of their service. On November 1, 2018, Bell announced that CraveTV had merged with The Movie Network, with both services renamed Crave (and promotions marketing the relaunch as "The All-New Crave"). Under the service's new structure, subscribers to the existing CraveTV OTT service may upgrade their subscription