CBWT-DT

CBC Winnipeg Building at 541 Portage Avenue

Planning for CBWT started in November 1952, when the Government of Canada announced its intention of setting up a television station in Winnipeg.[1] The station was announced by J. R. Finlay at a Cosmopolitan Club meeting at the Marlborough Hotel on September 16, 1953. At the time, the station was projected to become western Canada's first television station (before Vancouver's CBUT), but was delayed.[2] There was an entry for CBWT in the 1953 MTS telephone book.[3] In September 1953, CBC Winnipeg moved into a new 50,000 sq ft (5,000 m²) facility at 541 Portage Avenue,[4] from its former location within the Manitoba Telephone Building on Portage Avenue East. It is still there today, and it shares this location with CBW and CBW-FM.

A few months later, on May 31, 1954,[5] CBWT began as a bilingual station on channel 4 with an EIRP of 60,000 watts.[6] In the same year that CBWT went to air, another station, KXJB-TV (Valley City/Fargo, North Dakota) also began broadcasting on channel 4. There were doubts from the start whether there would be interference between the two stations.[7] Its first equipment consisted of an RCA Victor TT10AL Television Transmitter and a 196-foot (60 m) 6-section Super Turnstile Type TF-6AM Television Antenna, located atop the station's roof.[8]

One of CBWT's first big mobile production was Ice Revue, which was broadcast from the Winnipeg Winter Club in March 1956.[9] However, as a mobile production, the equipment was different from that present in the studio. Several people had phoned the station complaining that their television set would get stuck in the vertical or horizontal hold. This would occur when the switcher at the mobile unit went from one camera to another. Older (tube) television sets had a sync. generator and this was blamed for the reception problem.[10]

On September 30, 1956, it connected to the Trans-Canada Microwave Relay System, which allowed Winnipeggers to watch CBC Television programming on the same day it was broadcast in Toronto and Montreal.[11] To celebrate this link, CBC Television produced a special one-hour program, Along the Tower Trail, the Winnipeg segment featured a view of the CPR's Marshalling Yards, the Saint Boniface Cathedral, a prairie harvest clip, and a musical piece sung by the Andrew Mynarski School choir.[12] By late 1957, it was decided to move CBWT from channel 4 to channel 3.[13] The changeover occurred in April 1958.

Eye-To-Eye was a weekly local current affairs program broadcast from 10:15 to 11 p.m. every Tuesday and was the predecessor to 24Hours. It debuted on October 20, 1959, and was similar in style to Close-Up on the national network. The first topics covered were: "The Slums of Winnipeg", "Civic Politics – A Sick Joke" and "Interview – Two Young Ladies".[14] Eye-To-Eye was produced by Ken Black and Warner Troyer.

On April 24, 1960, the station became English-only, while French programming moved to the newly launched CBWFT. At the same time two VTRs, worth $75,000 each were installed at the station to replace the kinescope system used previously.[15] The local version of Reach for the Top debut in 1962 and was hosted by Bill Guest, alternately by Ernie Nairn. The program ran until 1985.

On November 16, 1964, it swapped channels with CBWFT and higher powered transmitters were installed on a new antenna mast 1,064 ft (324 m) high near Starbuck, Manitoba. Reception as far as 113 kilometres (70 mi) would now be possible.[16] This had the effect of improving reception of the station in the towns of Portage la Prairie, Gimli, Carman, Winkler, Morden, Morris, Letellier, Emerson, Altona, and Dominion City. It continues to be the tallest free-standing structure in the province.[17] The move to VHF channel 6 also permitted people in the coverage area to hear the English feed's audio on FM radios tuned to 87.7; this option was no longer available after the station shifted to digital and shut down the analogue transmitter.

There was a large NABET strike throughout the CBC organization in the spring of 1981, and production of 24Hours was halted. Strike action began at 10:30 p.m. on May 3, 1981.[18] Shortly after the Mulroney government came to power in 1984, they made major cuts to the CBC, and as a result, 86 staff members were let go at CBWT.[19] There was a second round of major cuts in December 1990, which had a negative effect on local production, especially on the resources of 24Hours.

On February 27, 1997, CBC Manitoba announced that it would update and expand by 2,700 square metres (29,063 sq ft) its studio facilities for the cost of $2.8 million.[20] In 1998, CBC Manitoba's newsroom and studios were expanded into a new building, after essentially using portables and an abandoned church as its news operations for many years. The television studio now features a window looking down onto Portage. A new digital Betacam SX format was introduced, one of the first CBC stations to transition to make use of it. The first television broadcast from the new studio occurred on Monday, September 21, 1998.

Previous programs produced at CBWT include Fred Penner's Place, It's a Living, and Disclosure. Disclosure was canceled in 2003. Peter Mansbridge, former anchor of The National, began his career at CBWT.

CBWT is CBC Television's flagship station for the Central Time Zone, airing the main CBC schedule one hour after the CBC Television stations in the Eastern Time Zone (for example, The National airs at 10 p.m. ET on CBLT-DT/Toronto and 10 p.m. CT on CBWT). This is different from the other Canadian television networks, whose stations in the Eastern and Central time zones air programs simultaneously in both time zones.

Country Canada, CountryWide and a local edition of CBC News at Six (formerly the local segment of CBC News: Canada Now from 2000 to 2006 and 24Hours from October 5, 1970 to 2000) have been produced out of CBWT. In addition, The National has an investigative unit based at the station.

CBWT-DT presently broadcasts 10 hours, 40 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with two hours each weekday, a half-hour on Saturdays and ten minutes on Sundays). Today, CBWT airs a 90-minute supper hour newscast from 5 to 6:30 p.m. and a ten-minute late night summary at 11 p.m. on weeknights, and weekend evening newscasts on Saturdays at 5:30 p.m. in the form of a half-hour newscast and Sundays at 11 p.m. in the form of a ten-minute bulletin.

The first big story CBWT covered happened on June 8, 1954, about one week after the station opened, where the Time Building at 333 Portage Avenue caught fire. The Time Building was across from the Eaton's building.

At one time, Western Manitoba Broadcasters (a subsidiary of Craig Media) and CBC Manitoba had an agreement where the Dauphin retransmitter (CBWST 8) would carry a local newscast in place of the Winnipeg one.[28] The program was called IMTV The Report and was broadcast at 5:30 PM. IMTV The Report ran in the 1980s and 1990s.[29]

News at Noon was CBWT's half-hour news program that ran until January 1985, when the network program Midday took up the timeslot.[30] It had been previously called Noon Hour, which was a 60-minute program.[31] Midday ran till 2000, but local news programming has not returned during the noon hour. 24Hours, an hour-long news and current affairs program, ran from 1970 to 2000.

CBWT operated approximately 50 analogue television rebroadcasters throughout the province of Manitoba (e.g. The Pas and Thompson, the Central Time Zone portion of Northern Ontario (e.g. Kenora) and portions of Saskatchewan. Due to federal funding reductions to the CBC, in April 2012, the CBC responded with substantial budget cuts, which included shutting down CBC's and Radio-Canada's remaining analogue transmitters on July 31, 2012.[34] None of CBC or Radio-Canada's rebroadcasters were converted to digital.

CBWT began extending its signal using various methods, beginning in June 1962 with CBWBT in Flin Flon and CBWBT-1 in The Pas using kinescope recordings from CBWT. Later on, CBTA in Lynn Lake became part of the Frontier Coverage Package in September 1967. From 1968 onwards, CBWT used the province-wide microwave system to provide live television signals.[35]

At one time, CBWAT in Kenora offered separate local news programming from CBWT, although this was discontinued in 1979–80 when CJBN-TV went on the air.

• CBC Manitoba
• CBWT-DT history – Canadian Communications Foundation
• Query the REC Canadian station database for CBWT
• Query TV Fool's coverage map for CBWT