The channel also faced particular resistance from Shaw Cable, the largest cable television provider in Western Canada, which was accused of constraining the availability of PrideVision during the channel's first few months in operation. During a three-month long free preview period that was mandated by the CRTC to help launch the slate of new digital specialty channels that had launched at that time, Shaw customers who tuned to PrideVision were prompted with a screen and had to navigate through various others to ultimately come to the conclusion that they were to be charged a 1¢ fee to view the channel. This process would have to repeated every time a customer turned back to PrideVision, including the 1¢ fee. This process was not required for any other similarly-licensed specialty channel. PrideVision took its concerns to the CRTC, who sided with the network and ordered Shaw to properly offer a free preview of PrideVision to its customers. Mounting issues with distribution, disputes with television service providers, slow growth among digital channels as a whole among the industry, and faced with criticisms of providing a weak mix of programming, PrideVision was losing a considerable amount of money. The channel's subscriber base grew much more slowly than expected, with only roughly 20,000 subscribers by the end of 2002 compared to channels such as IFC, which had over 520,000 subscribers in the same time period. To help grow its subscriber base, PrideVision offered another free preview period to its distributors, and launched an advertising campaign comparing this business situation to impotency. Many in the gay community interpreted this as the company blaming them for the channel's problems, although the owners denied this. Despite this, PrideVision's subscriptions did increase slowly. In an effort to reduce its losses, staff at PrideVision were cut from 25 to 10, most of its original programming was dropped, and the street-level studio on Church Street in Toronto was closed in December 2002. On December 3, 2003, Headline Media Group announced that it was selling a majority interest in PrideVision to 6166954 Canada, Inc., a consortium led by broadcaster William Craig. Craig would own the majority share in the company and act as managing partner, while Pink Triangle Press and various other independent production companies and investors held minority stakes. Headline Media retained a minority stake in the company. The transaction was finalized later in 2004. In September 2004, 6166954 Canada submitted an application to the CRTC for a new premium service, which would be devoted to gay adult programming. In November, PrideVision expanded its adult programming—now branded as "Hard on PrideVision"—into primetime (from 9:00 p.m.-6:00 a.m. Eastern Time), in preparation for the expansion of the block into a 24-hour service, alongside a non-adult network tentatively named "Glow TV".