CKNY-TV

CKNY-TV
North Bay, Ontario
Canada
Branding CTV Northern Ontario (general)
CTV News Northern Ontario (newscasts)
Slogan News for the North
Channels Analog: 10 (VHF)
Digital: allocated 38 (UHF)
Affiliations CTV (1971–present; O&O since 1990)
Owner Bell Media
First air date December 19, 1955
Call letters' meaning Canada K North BaY
Former callsigns CKGN-TV (1955-1960)
CFCH-TV (1960-1970)
Former affiliations CBC Television (1955-1971)
Transmitter power 132.6 kW
Height 185.6 m
Transmitter coordinates 46°3′46″N 79°26′7″W / 46.06278°N 79.43528°W / 46.06278; -79.43528
Website CTV Northern Ontario

CKNY-TV is the CTV owned-and-operated television station in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. It broadcasts an analogue signal on VHF channel 10 from a transmitter adjacent to Ski Hill Road (southwest of Highway 534) in Nipissing.

Owned by Bell Media, it is part of the network's CTV Northern Ontario sub-system and its studios are located on Oak and Wyld Streets (near the shoreline of Lake Nipissing) in Downtown North Bay. This station can also be seen on Cogeco Cable channel 9 and digital channel 909. Effective November 29, 2012, Bell TV customers will also be able to view CKNY-TV on channel 588.

History

CKNY was originally launched by local businessmen Gerry Alger and Gerry Stanton in 1955, as a CBC affiliate with the callsign CKGN. The station was subsequently acquired by The Thomson Corporation in 1960, and recalled as CFCH.

In 1970, Thomson reached a deal to sell the station to Bushnell Communications of Ottawa, although the transaction was never completed.[1] Around the same time, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission rejected all of the applicants in the first round of license hearings to extend CTV service to Sudbury, the largest market in the region; because the North Bay and Timmins markets were deemed too small to support competing television stations, the commission directed Cambrian Broadcasting of Sudbury and J. Conrad Lavigne of Timmins to collaborate on an alternative plan in which all three cities would receive CTV service without losing CBC.[2] Effectively, the decision declared all three cities to be a single television market, and prevented new television companies from entering and potentially upsetting the balance.[2]

In the first revised plan, Cambrian's CKSO-TV, which was now slated to become the CTV affiliate, would simply have added a rebroadcaster in North Bay on channel 4, while leaving the ownership status and affiliation of CFCH unchanged.[3] The CRTC rejected this proposal, however, as it did not adequately resolve the commission's concerns about CFCH's financial viability in the face of competition.[3] Accordingly, in 1971 the station was directly acquired by Cambrian Broadcasting and became an affiliate of CTV and a semi-satellite of CKSO, while Lavigne's new CBC affiliate, CHNB, went on the air at the same time.

For a number of years in the 1960s and 70s, CFCH/CKNY operated rebroadcast transmitter CJTK-TV in Témiscaming, Quebec on channel 3. It is not known when it was shut down.

Throughout the 1970s, CKNY and CHNB aggressively competed with each other for advertising revenue; by 1980, however, the stations ran into exactly the problem the CRTC had been trying to prevent by linking them to Sudbury in the 1970 hearings: they were losing money and very nearly bankrupt.[4] In 1980, the CRTC approved the merger of the two stations, along with their co-owned stations in Sudbury and Timmins, into the MCTV twinstick.[4]

In 1990, the stations were acquired by Baton Broadcasting. Baton subsequently became the sole corporate owner of CTV, and sold CHNB to the CBC in 2002.

In 1999, CKNY began rebroadcasting on channel 11 in Huntsville, Ontario (CKNY-TV-11), licensed to Dwight and serves the Muskoka and Parry Sound area on a transmitter which previously rebroadcast the programming of CKCO (as CKCO-TV-4).[5] Initially a semi-satellite with a very small amount of local programming, the Huntsville station subsequently lost local programming, and then changed its programming and advertising feed source to CICI.[6]

References

  1. ↑ "Timmins showman at CRTC". The Globe and Mail, June 18, 1970.
  2. 1 2 "CRTC proposes CBC-CTV partnership for alternative Northern Ontario service". The Globe and Mail, March 6, 1970.
  3. 1 2 "Rebroadcast programs: CRTC grants Sudbury licences". The Globe and Mail, August 6, 1970.
  4. 1 2 "CRTC approves amalgamation of Northern Ontario TV firms". The Globe and Mail, February 29, 1980.
  5. ↑ Decision CRTC 99-163
  6. ↑ Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2005-57
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.