2007 Canada broadcast TV realignment
In 2007, significant ownership changes occurred in
Sale of CHUM Limited to Bell Globemedia
In 2006, following the death of longtime chairman
Bell Globemedia initially intended to retain CHUM's
However, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) denied CTV's acquisition of the Citytv stations, as all five stations – CITY-TV (channel 57) in Toronto, CKVU-TV (channel 10) in Vancouver, CKEM-TV (channel 51) in Edmonton, CKAL-TV (channel 5) in Calgary and CHMI-TV (channel 13) in Portage la Prairie-Winnipeg – were based in markets where CTV already maintained owned-and-operated stations (O&O), and therefore CTV's retention of Citytv would have violated a provision in the Commission's media ownership limits, which bar broadcasters from owning two English-language television stations in major metropolitan areas. CTV was, however, allowed to retain control of the A-Channel stations (a few of the A-Channel stations were based in cities adjacent to the major five metropolitan areas such as Victoria, British Columbia; London and Barrie, Ontario; CRTC rules permit English-language commercial twinsticks in major markets provided that the stations have differing cities of license) and all of CHUM's specialty channels.
Soon afterwards, Rogers Communications placed a new bid to purchase the Citytv system as a complement to its own Omni Television, a system of multicultural stations that incorporate programming in various languages.[2]
CTVglobemedia
After Bell Globemedia's bid to purchase Citytv stations, and sell off the A-Channel stations, CKX-TV, and several other digital specialty channels denied by the CRTC, the outcome resulted in CTV putting the Citytv stations in a trust held by corporate lawyer John McKellar in the interim while it searched for a buyer.[3] Rogers Communications, which had originally bid on the A-Channel stations prior to the CRTC decision, placed a new bid for the Citytv stations a few days later, which was approved by the CRTC on September 28, 2007.
CHUM Limited officially ceased operations on June 22, 2007. With the exception of the Citytv stations and its
A-Channel's original 2007–08 schedule was announced in early June, before the takeover received CRTC approval. By September, CTV had radically altered the system's schedule to give A-Channel broadcast rights to several series that CTV had not been able to find time slots for on its own fall schedule, including
CTVglobemedia announced on November 16, 2007, that it and the channel's co-owner Comcast would sell their remaining interest in specialty channel OLN to Rogers Communications. Nearly five months later on March 8, 2008, the company announced that it would sell Canadian Learning Television to Corus Entertainment.
Rogers Communications
Rogers Communications had wanted to gain a multicultural station in Vancouver for a long time, but was either denied by the CRTC and competitor station CHNM-TV (channel 66; branded as "Channel M"), or was outbid while vying for local stations up on the market by other broadcasters. In 2005, opportunity arose when Rogers was given permission to purchase religious broadcaster Trinity Television, owner of Fraser Valley television station CHNU-TV (channel 66) and the license for Winnipeg station CIIT-TV (channel 35).
In 2007, both Multivan Broadcasting (owner of CHNM) and Rogers submitted bids for television stations in Edmonton and Calgary during a call by the CRTC for broadcasters to submit new broadcast licence applications. The licences were awarded to Rogers, which launched CJCO-TV (channel 38) and CJEO-TV (channel 56) as religious stations in the respective markets on September 15, 2008. Shortly afterward, Multivan entered a tentative deal to sell CHNM to Rogers, citing the loss of the Calgary and Edmonton licenses as leaving the company no longer able to compete as a standalone station. On November 6, 2007, Rogers also announced the intention to sell its CHNU-TV and CIIT-TV to S-VOX.[5] Rogers' acquisition of CHNM[6] and its sale of CHNU and CIIT to S-VOX were both approved by the CRTC on March 31, 2008.
On September 1, 2008, CHNM was relaunched as an Omni Television station (branded as "OMNI British Columbia"),[7] while S-VOX relaunched CIIT and CHNU respectively as "Joytv 11" and "Joytv 10" (in reference to the cable channel allocations of both stations in their respective markets).
In addition, Rogers applied to purchase the Citytv stations for an estimated $375 million.[2] Media analysts suggested that with a more powerful media conglomerate such as Rogers behind them, the Citytv stations would effectively expand to become Canada's fourth full-fledged commercial television network, in effect if not immediately in name. The Citytv transaction was approved by the CRTC on September 28, 2007, with Rogers officially becoming the system's new owner on October 31. Rogers acquired the remaining interest in OLN from CTVglobemedia and Comcast on August 31, 2008.
CanWest Global
CH becomes E!
On September 7, 2007,
Acquisition of Alliance Atlantis
Canwest, in conjunction with Goldman Sachs, also applied to the CRTC to purchase the assets of Alliance Atlantis, a broadcasting and film production and distribution company which operated 13 specialty cable channels and held partial ownership of seven other specialty channels. The transaction was approved by the CRTC in early January 2008. Canwest sold off the production division, but retained ownership of the cable channels.
Other changes
Crossroads Television System expansion
The Crossroads Television System (later renamed Yes TV in September 2014[11]), a religious broadcaster which also incorporates family-oriented secular programming and originated on Hamilton, Ontario, station CITS-TV (channel 36), also expanded in 2007, with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission granting CTS licences to launch two new stations: CKCS-TV (channel 32) in Calgary and CKES-TV (channel 45) in Edmonton.
SUN TV expansion
In 2007,
Current statuses
Canwest, amidst financial woes, announced a strategic review of the E! stations in February 2009, citing questions over the viability of owning a second broadcast television service alongside its existing Global Television Network. The company ultimately decided to disband the E! television system in August 2009 citing that "a second conventional TV network [was] no longer key to the long-term success" of Canwest; E!'s five owned-and-operated stations experienced different outcomes:[12] E! O&Os CJNT-TV (channel 62) in Montreal and CHCH-TV (channel 11) in Hamilton were sold to Channel Zero, while CHEK-TV (channel 6) in Victoria, British Columbia – mere hours before its planned 12 midnight Pacific Time shutdown on the evening of 4 September – was sold to a consortium of station employees and local investors for CA$2;[13][14] all three became independent stations upon the closure of the E! system. CHBC-TV (channel 2) in Kelowna, British Columbia, meanwhile, was retained by Canwest and converted into a Global O&O.[15] CHCA-TV, however, shut down after it was unable to find a buyer.[16] Shaw Communications eventually took control of Canwest's television arm in late October 2010 after Canwest sought protection from the company's creditors in late 2009, with its television properties becoming part of the new Shaw Media division.
On November 1, 2010, one year after the disbandment of the E! television system, CTVglobemedia struck a brand and program licensing agreement with Comcast to return the brand to Canada, relaunching its existing entertainment-focused specialty channel Star! as
On July 14, 2009, following Canwest's announcement of the E! system's shutdown, the
On April 18, 2011, Quebecor Media launched a new 24-hour news channel, Sun News Network; although Quebecor intended to have Sun News replace CKXT-TV, the company instead replaced the channel's entertainment programming with a simulcast of Sun News Network – which was licensed as a Category C specialty service intended only for distribution by cable and satellite providers – on that date. Quebecor would later voluntarily shut down CKXT on November 1, 2011, amid questioning by the CRTC on the company's usage of the station to simulcast Sun News Network.[26] Sun News eventually ceased operations on February 13, 2015, citing persistently low viewership and the failure to obtain CRTC approval to require mandatory carriage of the channel on domestic pay television providers, and after failed attempts to sell the network to ZoomerMedia (owned by veteran Canadian television executive Moses Znaimer) and Leonard Asper.[27]
CTVglobemedia was then reacquired by Bell Canada in 2011 reorganized as Bell Media. In 2012, however, Bell Media expanded by acquiring Astral Media.
On November 26, 2013, Rogers became the sole television and digital media rightsholder of the National Hockey League Canadian broadcasts that took effect at the start of the 2014–15 season; the deal was valued at $5.2 billion, twice as much as what NBC paid for its own long-term contract with the league in 2011. All Rogers hockey coverage now airs on City, Omni, a group of Sportsnet channels and CBC Television (which signed a four-year deal) through various games including the revamped Hockey Night in Canada.
See also
- 1989 South Florida television affiliation switch
- 1994–1996 United States broadcast television realignment
- 2001 Vancouver TV realignment
- 2006 United States broadcast television realignment
- 2007 in Canadian television
References
- ^ a b "Bell Globemedia makes $1.7B bid for CHUM". CBC News. July 12, 2006. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
- ^ Torstar Corporation. Archived from the originalon June 14, 2007. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
- ^ Grant Robertson; Beppi Crosariol (August 2, 2006). "CHUM trustee to take on starring role in takeover". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on October 4, 2006 – via Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.
- CTVglobemedia. August 11, 2008. Archived from the originalon July 6, 2011. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
- Rogers Media. November 6, 2007. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
- ^ "CRTC Approves Rogers Acquisition of channel m" (Press release). Rogers Media. March 31, 2008. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
- ^ "Rogers Media Rebrands channel m: Newest Rogers OMNI Television Station Re-launches as Rogers OMNI BC on September 1st" (Press release). Rogers Media. August 28, 2008. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
- ^ "E! - Canada's Destination for Everything Entertainment" (Press release). Canwest. September 7, 2007. Archived from the original on June 9, 2011. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
- ^ "CHCH News To Relaunch in September with a Return to Historic Call Letters" (Press release). Canwest. April 24, 2007. Archived from the original on June 9, 2011. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
"CHEK NEWS To Relaunch in September with a Return to Historic Call Letters" (Press release). Canwest. April 24, 2007. Archived from the original on June 12, 2010. Retrieved May 15, 2010. - ^ "CH Montreal To Relaunch as CJNT Montreal in September" (Press release). Canwest. April 24, 2007. Archived from the original on June 9, 2011. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
- ^ "CTS rebrands as Yes TV". Playback. Brunico Communications. September 24, 2014. Retrieved March 23, 2015.
- Canada Newswire.
- ^ "Channel Zero Inc. agrees to purchase CHCH-TV Hamilton and CJNT-TV Montreal from Canwest" (Press release). Channel Zero Inc. June 30, 2009. Archived from the original on July 5, 2009. Retrieved May 15, 2010 – via Canada Newswire.
- ^ "CHEK-TV to be sold to employees; jobs saved". Vancouver Sun. Canwest News Service. September 4, 2009. Archived from the original on September 8, 2009. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
- ^ "Canwest closing TV stations in Alberta, B.C." CBC News. July 22, 2009. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
- ^ Harley Richards (July 23, 2009). "CHCA-TV fades to black". Red Deer Advocate. Archived from the original on July 30, 2009. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
- ^ "CTV and Comcast International Media Group Partner to Bring E!, World's Top Entertainment Brand, Back To Canada". CTVglobemedia (Press release). November 1, 2010. Archived from the original on March 22, 2011.
- ^ Etan Vlessing (May 30, 2011). "Bell Media Unveils CTV Two For Fall TV Season". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 23, 2015.
- ^ "Jim Pattison Broadcast Group solidifies Program Supply agreement for three independent stations serving BC and Alberta" (Press release). Jim Pattison Broadcast Group. July 14, 2009. Archived from the original on August 31, 2009. Retrieved July 19, 2009.
- ^ "Citytv and Pattison Group Sign Affiliate Agreement". Broadcaster Magazine. May 3, 2012. Archived from the original on May 14, 2012. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
- ^ "Rogers to buy SCN, launch Citytv Saskatchewan". Financial Post. January 17, 2012.
- ^ "Rogers' Fast-Growing TV Network Expands, Citytv Into Montreal". Financial Post. December 20, 2012. Archived from the original on October 12, 2016. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
- ^ "Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2012-475". Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. September 5, 2012. Retrieved September 10, 2012.
- ^ "CRTC increases the diversity of voices in the Montreal market". Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. December 20, 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-01-09. Retrieved 2013-01-26.
- ^ "Citytv drops two letters from its station identification after 40 years". Canada.com. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
- ^ Susan Krashinsky (August 18, 2011). "Sun News gives up over-the-air licence". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on March 1, 2017. Retrieved August 18, 2011.
- ^ "Sun News Network to shut down: sources". CBC News. Retrieved February 13, 2015.