The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that Bell Media has pulled the plug on a French-language specialty TV channel that was once a magnet for adolescents. The Globe's Konrad Yakabuski writes that in its heyday, VRAK carved out a niche in youth programming with domestically produced shows that became cult favourites among the generation of Quebeckers born in the 1980s and 1990s. Its success was one of the reasons that Bell Media's parent company, BCE, paid $3-billion (excluding debt) in 2013 to acquire VRAK's then-owner, Astral Media. BCE's purchase of Astral thrust Bell Media overnight into second place in the Quebec television market -- and into a bitter rivalry with industry leader Quebecor. Bell Media's entry into the French-language specialty TV market came when convergence was still a thing, and francophone Quebeckers remained fiercely loyal to homegrown shows. Bell Media's move to axe VRAK effective Oct. 1 could presage a similar fate for other faltering specialty channels in Quebec. Bell Media complains that the regulatory framework is "obsolete and does not take current challenges into account." Bell also blamed the move by Quebecor's Videotron to drop the channel from its cable offerings.