Television in Canada officially began with the sign-on of the nation's first television stations in
Montreal and
Toronto in 1952. As with most
media in Canada, the television industry, and the television programming available in that country, are strongly influenced by media in the
United States, perhaps to an extent not seen in any other major industrialized nation outside the U.S. As a result, the government institutes quotas for "
Canadian content". Nonetheless, new content is often aimed at a broader
North American audience, although the similarities may be less pronounced in the predominantly French-language province of
Quebec.