CKVR-DT

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CKVR-DT (channel 3) is a

The station first signed on the air on September 28, 1955; it was founded by Ralph Snelgrove, whose first initial and that of his wife, Valerie, form part of the station's callsign. It originally operated as a privately owned affiliate of CBC Television. In 1969, the station was purchased by CHUM Limited, becoming one of the first television stations owned by the company.

On September 7, 1977, a private aircraft, owned by Falconbridge Nickel Mines Ltd., dropped altitude to 500 feet (150 m) in dense

On May 31, 1985, an F4 tornado, one of the most powerful and devastating tornadoes in Canadian history, struck Barrie, just a short distance from CKVR's studio facility and transmitter tower (the twister was among several other ones that were spawned during a massive

Eventually, the station's financial situation became untenable; then-general manager Doug Garraway explained in a presentation to the CRTC in spring 1994, "the CBC no longer wants us, in point of fact we can no longer afford to remain affiliated with them." CKVR was expected to have lost $5 million by the end of 1995. As a result, the station made the decision to drop CBC programming and go in a new direction.

On September 1, 1995, CKVR ended its affiliation with the CBC and converted into an

In the early 2000s, plans were being created for CKVR to move from their original facility to a new, state-of-the-art broadcast centre in Barrie's historic Allandale Station, much as other CHUM properties had street-side studios located in city centres. CHUM purchased the 6.9 acres (2.8 ha) of land, including the station buildings, for C$1,050,000 in 2000. CHUM planned to restore the Allandale Station building as part of their plan, but changed their plan in 2004. In 2007, CHUM agreed to sell the property to the City for the same amount CHUM originally paid. CHUM received a Charitable Donation tax receipt reflecting the increased value of the property since 2000 largely due to the restoration and site works completed by CHUM.^[3]

In February 2005, CHUM announced plans to consolidate the

On September 10, 2010, Bell Canada announced plans to re-acquire 100% of CTVglobemedia, a deal which was approved by the CRTC on March 7, 2011; the deal was finalized on April 1, 2011, with CTVglobemedia being absorbed into Bell Media.^[7]

On May 30, 2011, Bell Media announced that the A system would be relaunched as CTV Two effective on August 29, 2011.

CKVR-DT presently broadcasts 9+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with one hour-long show each weekday at 6 p.m., and half-hour shows at 11 p.m. on weekdays, and at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the lowest local newscast output out of any English-language television station in the Toronto market as a whole (of the English stations serving the immediate Toronto area, CBC O&O CBLT-DT produces the lowest newscast output with 11 hours each week).^[

]

During the station's CBC years, their newscasts were branded as CKVR Total News and featured a conventional newscast format. One young reporter, Kevin Frankish, reported for the station on the 1985 tornado, and eventually was promoted to CITY-TV's news operation.

When the station was relaunched in 1995, their newscast underwent a similar overhaul. The station's news now took after CITY-TV's groundbreaking

CityPulse, including an open newsroom set where anchors and reporters stood up to present the news. The focus of the newscast was also broadened to include more of the communities around Barrie, resulting in the newscast being dubbed VRLand News, "VRLand" being an all-encompassing term for the station's coverage area.^[1]

By 1999, the newscast had been renamed to simply VR News.

During the station's latter years under CHUM ownership, CKVR simulcast the flagship Toronto edition of CITY-TV's morning program Breakfast Television, with local news inserts incorporated that focused on stories within the Barrie area. In 2008, CKVR debuted a three-hour weekday morning news program titled A Morning, which was anchored by K.C. Colby (now weather specialist for the station's weekday evening newscasts) and Jennifer Buchanan.

Due to financial difficulties, CTVglobemedia cancelled A Morning, and the public affairs programs A News This Week (a pre-recorded wrap of the week's top stories, which debuted in the 1990s) and Ontario News This Week (a review of the week's top stories across the province, which also debuted in 2008) on March 4, 2009, laying off 24 employees at the station as part of a larger series of cutbacks and massive layoffs which resulted in the losses of 118 jobs at A's stations across Canada. The morning program was replaced by rebroadcasts of CKVR's 11 p.m. newscast.^[10][11]

Evening co-anchor Lance Chilton resigned from the station on June 14, 2010, to work in the real estate industry.^[12] In August 2010, Tony Grace, who had served as anchor and national reporter for Ottawa sister station CHRO, was named the new Senior News Anchor for CKVR effective September 20, 2010.^[13]

In September and October 2015, the station celebrated its 60th anniversary with a special five part news series of in-depth feature reports on the station's history. The week culminated with a live broadcast of CTV News at 6 on October 2, 2015, from the Barrie waterfront, featuring staff and on-air personalities past and present. The anniversary series examining the station's history was also rebroadcast as a half-hour special hosted by Tony Grace on December 28, 2015.^{[citation needed]}

Technical information

Subchannel

Subchannel of CKVR-DT^[14]

Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
3.1	1080i	16:9	CKVR	CTV 2

Analogue-to-digital conversion

CKVR shut down its analogue signal, over

VHF channel 3, on August 31, 2011, the official date on which Canadian television stations in CRTC-designated mandatory markets transitioned from analogue to digital broadcasts. The station flash cut its digital signal into operation, broadcasting on channel 10,^[15] using virtual channel

3.

Transmitters

Map all coordinates using OpenStreetMap

Download coordinates as:

• KML
• GPX (all coordinates)
• GPX (primary coordinates)
• GPX (secondary coordinates)

The current CKVR Television Tower is a 304.8-metre (1,000 ft) high guyed mast for FM and television signal transmission located at 44°21′00″N 79°41′50″W / 44.35000°N 79.69722°W / 44.35000; -79.69722 in Barrie. It was built in 1978, after a light plane crashed into the smaller incarnation of the tower the previous year.

CKVR previously operated low-power rebroadcast transmitters in the communities of

CHEX-TV in Peterborough, located at Minden and broadcasting on channel 7. The channel 5 transmitter was shut down when Toronto's CBLT moved from channel 6 to channel 5, and became largely redundant as a result of CKVR's increased transmission tower height in the early 1970s. The Huntsville transmitter increased to full power in 1991 to better cover much of Muskoka and Haliburton County

; it was bought by the CBC in 1995 as part of CKVR's disaffiliation from the CBC, and became a rebroadcaster of CBLT (remaining in operation until CBC shut down its analogue rebroadcasters in July 2012). CKVR kept its Parry Sound transmitter, and CBC established CBLT transmitters in Barrie and Parry Sound at that time, on channels 16 and 18, respectively.

On May 30, 2011, Bell Media announced plans to add a rebroadcast transmitter in Southern Ontario in 2012, to allow new advertising opportunities in the Toronto–

Rogers Media, with the addition of the site on Upper Wentworth Street as its permanent transmitter site (to compensate for the loss of CHCH-DT's tower space).^[20]

Station	City of licence	Channel (RF / VC)	ERP	HAAT	Transmitter coordinates
CKVR-TV-1	Parry Sound	12 ( VHF )	0.007 kW	0.00 m (0 ft)	45°20′38″N 80°0′46″W / 45.34389°N 80.01278°W / 45.34389; -80.01278 (CKVR-TV-1)
CHCJ-DT	Hamilton	35 ( UHF ) 35.1	390 kW	110 m (361 ft)	43°13′52.64″N 79°51′32.63″W / 43.2312889°N 79.8590639°W / 43.2312889; -79.8590639 (CHCJ-DT)
CKVP-DT	Fonthill	29 (UHF) 42.1	3.85 kW	151 m (495 ft)	43°3′5″N 79°18′1″W / 43.05139°N 79.30028°W / 43.05139; -79.30028 (CKVP-DT)

On February 11, 2016, Bell Media applied for its regular license renewals, which included applications to delete a long list of transmitters, including CKVR-TV-1. Bell Media's rationale for deleting these analog repeaters is below:

"We are electing to delete these analog transmitters from the main licence with which they are associated. These analog transmitters generate no incremental revenue, attract little to no viewership given the growth of BDU or DTH subscriptions and are costly to maintain, repair or replace. In addition, none of the highlighted transmitters offer any programming that differs from the main channels. The Commission has determined that broadcasters may elect to shut down transmitters but will lose certain regulatory privileges (distribution on the basic service, the ability to request simultaneous substitution) as noted in Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2015–24, Over-the-air transmission of television signals and local programming. We are fully aware of the loss of these regulatory privileges as a result of any transmitter shutdown."

At the same time, Bell Media applied to convert the licenses of CTV Two Atlantic (formerly ASN) and CTV Two Alberta (formerly ACCESS) from satellite-to-cable undertakings into television stations without transmitters (similar to cable-only network affiliates in the United States), and to reduce the level of educational content on CTV Two Alberta.[21]^[22]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Bright Lights, Small City". Ryerson Review of Journalism :: The Ryerson School of Journalism. June 1, 1999. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
2. ^ Conroy, Ed (January 21, 2021). "THE NEW VR RAW SHAWN MICHAELS (1997)". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 21, 2021. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
3. ^ "City Enters in Agreement to Purchase Allandale Station Site". City of Barrie. Archived from the original on September 28, 2008. Retrieved November 29, 2018.
4. ^ "Bell Globemedia makes $1.7B bid for CHUM". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. July 12, 2006. Archived from the original on September 8, 2011.
5. ^ "CRTC tells CTVglobemedia to sell 5 Citytv stations". Ca.news.yahoo.com. June 8, 2007. Retrieved June 8, 2007.^{[dead link]}
6. ^ "CTVglobemedia Promotes Richard Gray To Oversee News For A-Channel Stations and CKX Brandon". CTVglobemedia. July 26, 2007. Archived from the original on October 18, 2015.
7. ^ Canadian Press (March 7, 2011). "CRTC approves BCE's purchase of CTVglobemedia". Ctv.ca. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011. Retrieved May 23, 2011.
8. ^ ^{a b} "Bell Media's /A\ Network to Become "CTV Two" This Fall". BellMedia. May 30, 2011. Archived from the original on July 27, 2011.
9. ^ "Bell Media Unveils CTV Two For Fall TV Season". The Hollywood Reporter. May 30, 2011. Retrieved January 23, 2019.
10. ^ "CTV Implements Stop Gap Measures to Reduce Costs at 'A' Stations". CTVGlobeMedia. March 3, 2009. Archived from the original on March 6, 2009.
11. ^ "Barrie A-Channel station in survival mode". Orillia Packet and Times. March 4, 2009. Archived from the original on September 10, 2012.
12. ^ "/A\ News Anchor Lance Chilton Steps out of the Spotlight After 12 Years". CTVglobemedia. June 14, 2010. Archived from the original on July 19, 2011.
13. ^ "Tony Grace Named Senior Anchor of /A\ News Barrie". CTVglobemedia. August 23, 2010. Archived from the original on July 19, 2011.
14. ^ "RabbitEars.Info". Rabbitears.info. Retrieved January 23, 2019.
15. ^ Digital Television – Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA) Archived November 11, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
16. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on April 13, 2019. Retrieved June 18, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
17. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on November 18, 2018. Retrieved June 18, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
18. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on March 14, 2022. Retrieved June 21, 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
19. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on April 13, 2019. Retrieved July 15, 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
20. ^ Government of Canada, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) (January 15, 2014). "ARCHIVED – CKVR-DT Barrie and its transmitter CHCJ-DT Hamilton – Technical changes". Crtc.gc.ca. Retrieved January 23, 2019.
21. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Retrieved July 30, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
22. ^ "Notice of hearing – 22 to 24 November 2016 – Laval, Quebec – 28 November to 2 December 2016 – Gatineau, Quebec – Renewal of television licences held by large English- and French-language ownership groups". Crtc.gc.ca. Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). June 15, 2016. Retrieved January 23, 2019.

External links

• CTV 2 Barrie
• CKVR-TV History - Canadian Communications Foundation
• Bright Lights, Small City, a critique of VR News (
  Ryerson Review of Journalism
  , summer 1999)
• CKVR-DT in the REC Canadian station database
• CHCJ-DT in the REC Canadian station database
• CKVP-DT in the REC Canadian station database