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Future of the /A\ stations

40K views 238 replies 49 participants last post by  wilspin 
#1 ·
Many have speculated on here that CTVgm was only keeping the /A\ stations around to broadcast their prime-time programming during the Olympics. Now that the Vancouver games are over, the question is will they keep them for another 2 1/2 years for the London games. With the analog shutdown scheduled before then, it seems unlikely. The /A\ stations can be grouped into three categories:

  1. Access
  2. /A\ Atlantic
  3. /A\ Broadcast stations

The Access stations are being discussed in the thread Future of Alberta's Access TV Network? so we will leave discussion of them to that thread.

/A\ Atlantic is only on cable and satellite, so it isn't affected by the analog shutdown, and may continue as is (it may even become a national station).

This leaves the Broadcast stations, which include:
  • CKVR - Barrie, ON
  • CFPL - London, ON
  • CHRO - Pembroke/Ottawa, ON
  • CHWI - Wheatley/Windsor, ON
  • CIVI - Victoria, BC

Some may be sold, some may be merged into the CTV network and some may be shut down. This thread is to discuss what could/should happen to each of these stations.
 
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#137 ·
I agree that Kitchener and London are different communities and markets. With London, they could extend the coverage area to include everything south to Windsor & west to Sarnia and make it sort of a Southern Ontario superstation. The Kitchener station, on the other hand, should be intended to serve the grand river area (Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph & Brantford) as well as Woodstock, London is a little too south.
It would be a unique idea for CFPL to do their local London news then sort of a regional newscast in a different slot covering Mid-Western Ontario (Wingham, Owen Sound) and Sarina.

I still think it would be great for CFPL to have a morning program again, A-Morning in it's final stage I always thought was very well produced.

For the record, it takes someone to live in either London or K/W to realize that they are both very different cities with really nothing in common besides from the 4 or 5 FM radio stations that spill over into each market.

Regardless I wish CFPL was exactly like CHCH, but isn't.
 
#138 ·
The unfortunate reality is CTVgm doesn't care if people in London can receive CKCO OTA as long as they are on basic cable. Local advertisers may be a bit more important, but still not a huge concern as even if they loose 50% of the local advertisers from each market by combining them, they would still have just as many ads per hour to broadcast. Besides, national advertisers make the bulk of their advertising revenue.
There in lies the problem of conglomerates owning local stations- if they don't care about local advertisers that means they also don't care about the local community in general. This is no more evident in that ALL CTV stations are identical to one another and the only thing differentiating one from the other is the local newscast, which is also the only real local programming they air. CFPL and all other A stations need Local, independent ownership in order to truly serve the community. Just ask viewers in Hamilton if their local station is better now (owned by an independent) or better when it was owned by a conglomerate (Canwest)?! ;)
 
#139 ·
The unfortunate reality is CTVgm doesn't care if people in London can receive CKCO OTA as long as they are on basic cable.
The same can be said for Global. London had the highest cable penetration rate in NA, probably the world, at 95% in the 1960's. That meant local transmitters were not needed. Cable penetration didn't really change until satellite TV arrived. As long as the CRTC keeps giving CTV the LPIF and FFC, they will do everything they can to keep Londoners and other Canadians on BDUs in order to receive the fees. London is probably the most underserved market of it's size in NA for major network coverage. /A\ just doesn't cut it due to it's lack of popular prime time programming. CTV may be losing money on /A\ but they are basically getting out what they put into the stations, nothing.
 
#140 ·
PlayitSimple, I couldn't agree with you more. If CTV had their way, they would only have 5 stations (one per timezone, minus Newfoundland) with everyone receiving the appropriate station.

IMHO, doing something similar to the Americans, where the networks only own stations in major markets and are required to affiliate with independents in smaller ones, would be a very good thing.
 
#142 ·
Well as part of that the CRTC would have to change the timeshifting rules ala how its done in the USA
IMHO, they should have done that from day one. It's too late, now that our local channels are all sold off and gutted. The healthy broadcasting system we had is now destroyed. Allowing repeaters that are hundreds of miles away from the originating station and compete in other station's markets should never have been allowed either. CFPL started it's long slide when it lost the CBC affiliation but nobody that came along later has done it any favours. Part of me hopes that CTV closes CFPL down instead of transitioning it. That, and the shut down of the local CBC repeater, would raise such a stink that the government would need to reevaluate the entire CRTC process.
 
#147 ·
London truly is underserved with respect to OTA broadcasting.

Once the CBC completes their digital transition 'review' by the end of this year, I'll be disappointed if the CBC does not convert London's OTA repeater to digital and shuts the analogue transmitter down. It will be the only broadcaster in London and surrounding area that would not be transitioning their OTA transmitter to DTV.

London and area is definitely more than 500000 people, with some estimates of 1 million, as mentioned in this thread.

As far as CFPL and CTV go, London needs a local channel, even if there is just 1.5 hours of actual local programming per day Monday to Friday. Local businesses also need a local channel to advertise. There are currently no other channels in Southwestern Ontario that will serve London and area with local content, even though "local content" is very little.
 
#144 ·
You would think so, but then you look at CKXT (SunTV Toronto) and the fact that the largest city in Canada is about to lose a local station and yet no in a position of power cares, and it just goes to show that change ain't coming.
Perhaps because Sun TV is a station that is not needed as there are already 4 networks with stations in that market. Also, it should never have been approved for Toronto, it should have been licensed for the Niagara region, one of the largest without a station of its own.
 
#146 ·
In all fairness those applications involved local businessmen and not ones that well respected. If a major media corp like BellGM or Craig Media I wonder if things would be different.

Having said that I could still see this TV station and perhaps more working in Toronto. Buy better programming and in conjunction with OTA gaining traction.
 
#149 ·
Personally I like the idea of having the /A\ stations sold to GlobalTV or CityTV, but that is just me.
Interesting thought but do Rogers & Shaw have any interest in buying these stations, I kinda doubt it?! The Ottawa station would be a good fit with Global or Citytv since they don't have a station there but not sure if they would want any of the other stations which are all located in small markets.
 
#150 ·
Interesting thought but do Rogers & Shaw have any interest in buying these stations, I kinda doubt it?!
It is hard to say if they are interested. They may be happy using repeaters.

The Ottawa station would be a good fit with Global or Citytv since they don't have a station there but not sure if they would want any of the other stations which are all located in small markets.
They don't have stations in any of the /A\ markets. Ottawa is by far the largest of them though.
 
#151 ·
I do think that the Ottawa station will be sold. Being that they have the market's only local morning show (English or French) in a market of over a million, there is value to CHRO, and to Global or Rogers owning in. I can't see CTV wanting to hold onto the station though.
 
#152 ·
Personally I like the idea of having the /A\ stations sold to GlobalTV or CityTV, but that is just me.
CityTV has a repeater in Woodstock and a signal that covers London well. It's the clearest station where I am located, even better than closer stations. I doubt Global would be all that interested either. Global and CTV have CIII Paris and CKCO Kitchener to cover everything east of London and repeaters near Oil Springs that covers everything west of London. CTV and Global won't provide London stations or even local repeaters because the current towers are close enough to get simsubs and cable/satellite penetration is ridiculously high.
 
#153 ·
It is true that both GlobalTV and CityTV have repeaters that cover London (and Ottawa), but having a local presence in a city gives certain advantages over pumping in a signal from another city. I would argue that CFPL is especially valuable since it is London's only station and thus doesn't have any competition for local programming.

While I agree that CityTV likely will not be interested as they only own stations in five of Canada's largest English markets (though they might be interested in A Atlantic, if it went up for sale), GlobalTV owns stations in eleven markets, many of which are smaller than London. I have said this before, but the /A\ stations are a really good fit for GlobalTV as they fill some of their biggest holes.

I may be reading into things, but CIII's Paris and Ottawa repeaters may be staying on channel 6 to minimize costs in hopes that they can acquire CHRO and CFPL.
 
#154 ·
Why would CTV put A London as an affilate?

Its cheaper to put a transmitter then have a building in which you need to pay staff, pay for the building, hydro, heating and stuff like that, plus prperty tax to the city of London.

Way cheaper to put a transmitter the a run full fleg station?

As for A Ottawa since the fire at the oid CTV studios there running out of A Ottawa Studios now permitly. Also A Ottawa Morning show wipes out Canada AM in the morning time slot way way way more people watch A Morning then Canada AM? Its alot better too ;)
 
#157 ·
Why would CTV put A London as an affilate?

Its cheaper to put a transmitter then have a building in which you need to pay staff, pay for the building, hydro, heating and stuff like that, plus prperty tax to the city of London.

Way cheaper to put a transmitter the a run full fleg station?
There is money to be made providing local programming, especially if you are the only local station in town. I still say it would be better to have another network provide the local programming for London and CTV continue to provide local programming for KW and have the two of them compete for prime-time network programming, but that is just me.

As for A Ottawa since the fire at the oid CTV studios there running out of A Ottawa Studios now permitly.
I agree that a new owner would need to obtain a new studio, but that can be done.

Also A Ottawa Morning show wipes out Canada AM in the morning time slot way way way more people watch A Morning then Canada AM?
/A\ Morning is a bit of an anomaly for CTV as they have canceled their local morning show in all other markets so I don't think they would miss it all that much. I gather Shaw is resurrecting the GlobalTV morning shows in various cities, so they would likely continue with it and might bring back an evening news cast.

Its alot better too ;)
Just goes to show that different people have different tastes. Personally I can't stand it; not that I am a big fan of Canada AM, but it at least seems a bit more polished. I suspect the type of person who likes A Morning also likes the CJOH local news (which I also can't stand but is very popular). My opinions may be related to the fact that I am not from "The Valley" (I am actually from a different valley, the Fraser Valley ;)).
 
#155 ·
Way cheaper to put a transmitter the a run full fleg station?
Exactly - they have empty space in the Bell building downtown plus they could put a low powered digital transmitter on the CBC or Rogers towers in Byron. Then demolish the CFPL building and transmitter. It's in the middle of a housing development and should fetch a hefty price as undeveloped residential land.
 
#158 ·
The /A\ building is probably more of a liability than an asset. Just what is an oversized, overvalued, 50 year old analog studio worth less than a year before the analog shutdown? We've seen more useful buildings torn down because property taxes were too high and the empty lots were more valuable with a lower tax assessment.

As for CIII covering London, you are joking I hope. The only problem is that, as far as the CRTC is concerned it does. As far as most Londoners are concerned, it doesn't. The CRTC would probably deny any application to make CFPL a CTV or Global affiliate due to the status of CIII and CKCO.
 
#159 ·
As for CIII covering London, you are joking I hope.
I agree. I doubt if people in Kitchener or London will be able to receive CIII-DV very easily post transition if they stay on 6. ;) That was my point.

The CRTC would probably deny any application to make CFPL a CTV or Global affiliate due to the status of CIII and CKCO.
I don't quite get this. Why would the CRTC turn down an application because of competition to another station also owned by the applicant? It is not like CTVgm or Shaw would intervene against their own application.
 
#162 ·
I think you're dreaming. If it was a priority, CTV would have tried to convert CJOH8 Cornwall to A long ago.

That is if the CRTC would let them. The CRTC is a bit skittish about allowing more local English stations than French stations in French markets.

Montreal has:

English Commercial:
CTV
Global

English Public:
CBC

French Commercial:
TVA
V

French Public
SRC
TQ
CFTU (Canal Savoir)

Multilingual
CJNT

CJNT is already pushing it, by being a pseudo English station some of the time.
 
#165 ·
Just had a look at Achannel London and it is just as normal as a day in July. At the very least a crawl could be on the channel. Might as well shut the place down. However the story is on CHCH and probably CKCO which is still not on Bell Tv. You wonder where all the money goes....lots of local advertising and the monthly fee on our Cable/DTH bills. Still believe it was a total rip off by CTV and others.
 
#170 ·
Local TV - CTV should be ashamed of themselves. It's a good thing that Londoners cn get CHCH OTA and on cable/satellite so that a Hamilton station could keep Londoners up to date during the storm.

Hats off to CHCH
And a big "stick it to where the sun doesn't shine" to CTV. Hey CTV - give Londoners a Christmas present - surrender your London A channel licence
 
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