Across CANADA - CTV stations to be discontinued?

[ScaryBob]

If a station meets the criteria for local station improvement funds, they (and their repeaters) will receive funding.

Repeaters in Southwestern Ontario are almost all for Toronto stations that produce no local programming and don't qualify. (There is one repeater for CFPL London that might.) If the original station qualifies for local programming, then I agree but many repeaters (dozens in SW Ontario) are for large city stations that produce no local content in the areas the repeaters serve.

That's a stretch. A lot of those stations predate the 1968 establishment of the CRTC, let alone the institution of simsub regulations in the early 70's.

NONE of the repeaters in SW Ontario predate the CRTC or simsubs. They are a phenomenon that sprang up in the 1980s and 1990s, along with the advent of frequent simsubs. Prior to that, many shows on Canadian networks aired at different, often earlier, times than on US networks. Once simsub technology became common, that changed. Note that CTV, CITY and Global do not provide a grade A repeater for London. They provide repeaters with grade B contours that qualify for simsubs but do not provide a usable signal for most Londoners. Most of the other repeaters provide such a poor quality signal that they cannot be watched either. However, they are good enough to provide simsub opportunities on cable.

[Jase88]

@scarybob: I see only two stations on the list that are repeaters for CFTO Toronto (Bobcaygeon and Severn Falls).

Southwestern Ontario does have it's own CTV station: CKCO Kitchener. And this station does have several repeaters throughout the southwestern Ontario region. The Kitchener station itself may qualify for funding...

And "A" Channel stations in Ontario would all likely qualify for LPIF funding...given that they serve London, Wingham, Ottawa.

[tvlurker]

Quote:
I said:
That's a stretch. A lot of those stations predate the 1968 establishment of the CRTC, let alone the institution of simsub regulations in the early 70's.

ScaryBob said:
NONE of the repeaters in SW Ontario predate the CRTC or simsubs. They are a phenomenon that sprang up in the 1980s and 1990s, along with the advent of frequent simsubs. Prior to that, many shows on Canadian networks aired at different, often earlier, times than on US networks. Once simsub technology became common, that changed. Note that CTV, CITY and Global do not provide a grade A repeater for London. They provide repeaters with grade B contours that qualify for simsubs but do not provide a usable signal for most Londoners. Most of the other repeaters provide such a poor quality signal that they cannot be watched either. However, they are good enough to provide simsub opportunities on cable.

I wasn't only talking about Southern Ontario.
A lot of those rebroadcasters did exist in the late sixties -- some even predate CTV and the "second television service" altogether, like CJOH-TV-8 Cornwall, which was on the air as early as 1959 as failed attempt at a CBC-affiliate trying to rim-shot Montreal, unlike CHCH's successful rim-shot of Toronto as a CBC-affilliate.

CKNX Wingham predated simsub. CKVR's relays in Central Ontario (Owen Sound, Huntsville, Parry Sound) predated simsub. But I think you're right, the CKCO relays in Huntsville, Wiarton, and Chatham came slightly later.

I agree that Global and CH and to a lesser extent SunTV's rebroadcasters are a creature of the simsub rules. Not so sure about the relays in other provinces, though.

[USA CBC fan]

Originally Posted by ScaryBob

These repeaters were put in place originally to allow simsubs on area cable systems. CTV now has approval to request simsubs for areas where no stations exist. Therefore the repeaters are no longer necessary and CTV is shutting them down rather than spend any money for digital conversion.
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Actually some of the older stations may have been built to provide a signal to viewers in areas out-of-range of their primary stations - people who had never been cable subscribers at the time. Even if the relays could not run local ads, advertisers in the larger city (and nationwide advertisers) had customers in the outlying areas, and some larger businesses in the outlying areas may have bought ad time either to draw business from the larger city or to reach their local area even if the ad were also "wasted" on the other areas.

[GeoStar]

Oh well maybe this is a good thing as quality tv transmissions will survive .

[mjjl]

Many of the transmitters have been around since the 1960s, some since the late 50s, to simply extend television service to remote areas. CHBC in Kelowna had two repeaters the day it signed on because of the mountainous terrain of the region. By 1968, CHAN in Vancouver already had a bunch of transmitters in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, and CHEK already covered a good chunk of the island. CFCL in Timmins had a large transmitter network covering Northeastern Ontario and Northwestern Quebec. CBC had quite a few repeaters by that time as well, particularly in Northwestern Ontario and British Columbia.

CKCO's transmitters all came about in the 1970s. CFTO's came on in 1995, reportedly to allow cottagers from the GTA to be able to get CFTO's newscasts while at the cottage. It makes sense considering they established the Orillia transmitter with much overlap with what was then a CKCO repeater in Huntsville - now an MCTV repeater - which in both cases provided news of little interest to Toronto cottagers.

[JamesK]

Many of the transmitters have been around since the 1960s, some since the late 50s

There wouldn't have been any transmitters around in the late 50s, other than CBC & affiliates. There wasn't any competition to the CBC until the fall of 1960.

[USA CBC fan]

@ScaryBob

I don't know when simsub started, but some SW ontario repeaters definitely predated the 1980's.
TVontario CICO32 (Windsor); CICO59 (Chatham) and CICO18 (London) 1976
SRC CBLFT repeaters in Sarnia (68) London (40 - since moved to 53) Chatham (48) and Kitchener (76 - since moved to 61) no later than 1979 (when I first saw them)
(CBEFT Windsor, 78 - since moved to 54, came on in 1976, but was not a relayer, it had some local Windsor programming, it was converted to a relayer in budget cuts years later)
CTV CKCO3 Oil Springs (42) 1974
Global CKGN1 Cottam (22), CKGN29 Oil Springs (29) 1975
Note: CKGN1 was destroyed by a fire in 1977 or 1978 - another channel 22 transmitter, CIII22, was built almost 20 years later, and was not a rebuild of the Cottam transmitter. It was built at a different site, and deliberately different coverage contours, so it would not have to black out US copyright programming. To add to the confusion, Global had another channel 22 repeater with that started out with the CKGN22 call sign, at Uxbridge, which became CIII22 when all the Globals went to the CIII call sign. It was replaced with TWO global relayers, at the CN tower (41) and Midland (7)
CIII29 is simply the original 29 relayer with only the CIII sall sign change.
CIII Paris (6) is not considered a relayer, it is considered the parent station, even though the studio and offices are far closer to relayer CIII41.


@JamesK

Actually, CBC had lots of competition before the fall of 1960 - it was just transmitting from my side of the river/lake/49th.

[mjjl]

Point of clarification:

There wouldn't have been any transmitters around in the late 50s, other than CBC & affiliates. There wasn't any competition to the CBC until the fall of 1960.

CKSO Sudbury had a transmitter in Elliot Lake as early as 1957. Others established before 1960 included an Argentia repeater of CJON in St. John's, several repeaters of CBHT from Halifax in Southwest Nova Scotia, and as I indicated, CHBC in Vernon and Penticton.

[stampeder]

Simsubbing started in 1972. The use of repeaters began in Canada in the mid-1960s, and CBC installed lots of them starting in 1974 as part of their Accelerated Coverage Plan.

See the timeline in this thread:

OTA, Cable, and Satellite TV in Canada: the Historical View

This thread is wandering a bit off topic, so unless we get some concrete info on CTV's station closure plans we'll just leave it be for now.

[JamesK]

I don't know about the others, but CKSO was originally a CBC affiliate, as all independently owned TV stations were required to be, until 1960. TV competitors were not permitted until then. CHCH TV, in Hamilton is another example of an independent that started out as a CBC affiliate. Prior to Sept 1960 there was not a single television station in Canada, that was not owned by or affiliated to the CBC. The situation in Canada was similar to, but not as bad as in England, where the "Beeb" was the only legal broadcaster for many years (Until about 40 odd years ago, independent British radio stations had to operate from ships in internation waters). The singer Kieth Hampshire was a DJ on one of those ships operating off the coast of England.

[bcgirl]

Originally Posted by tvlurker

AFAIK, none of the CTV stations that CTV threatened to shut down have actually shutdown. Please jump in, if any one knows to the contrary.

Canwest, on the other hand, has shut down the Edmonton and Calgary relays of the Red Deer station.

Well they haven't gone off air yet, but that does seem to be the idea. Guess we'll have to wait to see what the CRTC says when it reviews the application.

The following article talks about the potential closures: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/...ransition.html

Did some number crunching and 10% of these populations (likely the actual number is more as someone mentioned the point that surrounding communities (not counted in population total of the transmitting community) also watch) is over 150,000. Maybe that's not a huge number but I'd argue it is hugely significant to the people it affects.

Stampeder, is there a specific spot on this website devoted to discussing these OTA changes? Seems to me a lot is going down in the near future but not everyone is aware. I'm sure you don't want the site to become politically biased, but isn't there a way to advertise the issue and just provide facts? And post it somewhere where everyone who logs onto the OTA portion can know where it is and click on it if they so choose? Right now there seem to be a lot of different threads in many different places..you have to dig around a great deal to see what's what..is it possible to have all related threads in one location and advertise/inform about it like currently done in the "Welcome to the Over-the-Air (OTA) Television Forums" block for the OTA Reception Results Forum, for example? In my opinion anyways, everybody with an antenna should be aware of digital conversion issues, including potential shutdown of repeater stations, and they should also be encouraged to speak out to everyone they can....

TVlurker, I think it'd be good to know what Canwest is up to too - do you know of any other transmissions they have or want to shut down?

[tvlurker]

Well they haven't gone off air yet, but that does seem to be the idea. Guess we'll have to wait to see what the CRTC says when it reviews the application.

Which application? The CRTC has already ruled on CTV's original application, and it renewed the licenses for (re-)transmitters that CTV didn't apply for.

[bcgirl]

It's in the appendix of the supporting report for their 2009 licence renewal hearing. Isn't that yet to come later this fall?

Wait a minute, ok, I see - the licence decisions were made this past spring, yes? So this list is old news then. Please forgive my ignorance, I'm muddling my way through all this.

Can anybody tell me in dumb speak what the hearing in the fall is to be about then? Reading through the notic of consultation (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2009/2009-411.htm) they're to discuss how licencing renewal will take place in the future and how digital transition should take place??? But hasn't the CRTC already decided OTA transition will only be required in 29 cities? Or is it that what's they're proposing and will decide further later on???

[JamesK]

Can anybody tell me in dumb speak what the hearing in the fall is to be about then?

Probably to discuss whether or not they'll renew the licences last spring. ;-)