2007 Canada broadcast TV realignment
In 2007, significant ownership changes occurred in Canada's broadcast television industry, involving nearly every private English-language network and television system. In addition to the shuffling of network affiliations and mergers involving various networks, several new television stations and rebroadcast transmitters also signed on the air.
CanWest Global[edit]
CH becomes E![edit]
On September 7, 2007, Canwest Global rebranded its CH television system as E!,[8] following an agreement it struck with Comcast – then the parent company of the E! cable channel in the United States (now owned by Comcast division NBCUniversal) – which saw the two broadcasters share certain programming. Simultaneously, the system's six owned-and-operated stations restored the use of call signs as branding (a decision was made at least in part to avoid confusion with the entertainment news program E! News, while also intended to ensure that local newscasts on the O&Os were not perceived as celebrity-oriented).[9][10] Red Deer, Alberta O&O CHCA-TV (channel 6) was also granted permission to increase its transmitter power to reach its signal into Edmonton and Calgary, a request that the CRTC had previously denied.
Acquisition of Alliance Atlantis[edit]
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[edit]
Crossroads Television System expansion[edit]
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[edit]
In 2007, Quebecor Media – owners of Toronto independent station CKXT-TV (channel 52, branded as "SUN TV") – had applied for licences to operate rebroadcast transmitters in London and Ottawa, to bring the station on par with fellow Toronto-area competitors CITY-TV (the flagship of the Citytv system), CITS-TV, CFMT-TV (channel 47) and CJMT-TV (channel 40; both the flagships of Omni Television and branded respectively as "OMNI.1" and "OMNI.2"), as those stations already operated translators in those cities. The reason for this request was that it would put the station on a level playing field in regards to simultaneous substitution. This request was approved by the CRTC; the new UHF rebroadcasters signed on the air in the fall of 2008, on analog channel 26 and digital channel 19 in London, and on analog channel 54 and digital channel 20 in Ottawa.
Current statuses[edit]
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 E!.[17] BCE Inc. would eventually regain full control of CTV's broadcasting arm in April 2011, with CTVglobemedia being rebranded as Bell Media. Bell subsequently rebranded the A stations and Access as CTV Two five months later on August 29.[18]
On July 14, 2009, following Canwest's announcement of the E! system's shutdown, the Jim Pattison Group signed an agreement with Rogers Communications to affiliate the company's three E!-affiliated stations – CFJC-TV (channel 4) in Kamloops, British Columbia, CKPG-TV (channel 2) in Prince George, British Columbia, and CHAT-TV (channel 6) in Medicine Hat, Alberta – with Citytv that September, expanding that system's reach into Western Canada[19] (as part of a long-term affiliation renewal agreement signed with Rogers in May 2012, the Pattison stations began carrying 90% of the primetime programming and the majority of morning and daytime programs from the programming grid of Vancouver O&O CKVU-DT in September of that year, which included simulcasts of the Vancouver edition of Citytv's morning show franchise Breakfast Television; although the Pattison stations continued to produce midday and evening local newscasts, unlike CKVU, which dropped all of its other newscasts outside of Breakfast Television in 2006, shortly before the CHUM sale[20]).
Rogers Media decided to broaden Citytv's national coverage, and transform it from a system into a television network, through the purchases of two other broadcasters; on January 17, 2012, Rogers purchased provincial educational cable channel Saskatchewan Communications Network from Bluepoint Investment Group (which following the private equity firm's purchase of the channel the previous year, had already begun incorporating entertainment programming during the late-afternoon and nighttime hours following the CRTC's approval of an amendment to SCN's licence), relaunching it as City Saskatchewan in September of that year.[21] Subsequently, in March, Rogers purchased CJNT-DT in Montreal from Channel Zero; as part of the agreement, CJNT began carrying Citytv's prime time programming in the interim, while a licence amendment it filed to convert the multicultural station into a full-time English-language outlet underwent review with the CRTC.[22] The CJNT sale and conversion was unanimously approved by the CRTC in December 2012, as a result of Rogers agreeing to produce 15+1⁄2 hours a week of local programming for CJNT (including a morning news program) and offering to contribute funding and programming to a new independent multicultural station in Montreal, which launched in August 2013 as CFHD-DT (channel 47).[23][24] Coinciding with the changes, Citytv rebranded as simply City (originally verbally referred to as "City Television") on December 31, 2012, with an updated visual branding that removed the "tv" from the newly rechristened network's longtime logo.[25]
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.