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CKXT-TV (known on air as SUN TV), channel 52, is an independent broadcast television station based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and serving much of southern and eastern Ontario. The station is currently owned by Quebecor Media through its Groupe TVA unit; however, it is separate from that company's French-language TVA network.

CKXT began broadcasting on September 19, 2003, with analog transmitters in Toronto and Hamilton, and was known as Toronto 1 until August 29, 2005. The station subsequently added digital transmitters in both cities, as well as in Ottawa and London.

In late 2010, Quebecor received a Category 2 specialty channel licence for a new national news channel, the Sun News Network, which the company initially stated was intended "to replace the over the air Sun TV station in Toronto," implying that CKXT would sign off at or before the news channel's launch. Sun News Network is currently scheduled to be launched in March 2011.[1] However, Quebecor has since applied for the authority to continue CKXT's operations following the digital conversion in August 2011, making the company's current intentions for the station unclear.[2]

History

Toronto 1: licensing and launch

Prelaunch logo of Toronto One.

Craig Media was awarded a licence for Toronto 1 (originally stylized as "Toronto One") by the CRTC on April 8, 2002 in a non-unanimous and somewhat controversial decision regarding five competing applications for new Toronto-area TV stations. Torstar, which proposed a "Hometown Television" format with stations in Toronto, Hamilton, and Kitchener,[3] was widely deemed the frontrunner for the licence. However, its proposed schedule, with minimum 85% Canadian content consisting primarily of local and regional programming and no U.S. simulcasts, was found to be unviable by most commissioners. Several existing broadcasters were opposed to any new broadcasters being licensed in the Toronto area because of the unstable economic climate. Alliance Atlantis and CanWest Global were also failed applicants. At the same time Rogers applied for and received a licence for a second Toronto multicultural station, OMNI.2, in a much less controversial decision.

This also marked the first time that Craig Media had been granted a licence to compete directly with a station owned by CHUM Limited, which meant that CHUM lost sales revenues from the broadcast rights it had contracted to Craig's A-Channel stations. CHUM retaliated by applying for broadcast licences in Calgary and Edmonton, two markets it had previously avoided so as not to compete directly with Craig. The CRTC denied CHUM's applications.

On-air logo for "Toronto 1" (2003-2005).

The station proved to be a financial disaster for Craig. It was frequently criticized in the Toronto media when it launched, particularly for flashy but vacuous and repetitive local content, and for an uninspired prime time schedule based heavily on movies, much like CHUM's longstanding CITY. Columnist Russell Smith of The Globe and Mail called Toronto 1 a "wretched excuse for a television station".[4]

On May 19, 2004, Craig announced that 28 Toronto 1 employees and nine employees working at CKAL in Calgary were being laid off. In addition, a large portion of Toronto 1's original programming, including weekday morning show Toronto Today, variety show The Toronto Show, and late evening talk show Last Call, were cancelled. Some of the hosts, such as Wei Chen and Roz Weston, were reassigned to other roles with the station at that point. Craig Media said the cuts were made to "further rationalize its operations and control costs".

None of the changes worked, however, and Craig was forced to sell its conventional television assets to CHUM. CHUM was required by CRTC competition regulations to divest itself of the station, owing to its already strong presence in the Toronto television market.

Sale to Quebecor Media and relaunch

On April 12, 2004, CHUM Limited announced that it would acquire Craig Media for $265 million with plans to divest Toronto 1.

First logo as SUN TV, used from 2005-2007.

CHUM eventually agreed to sell the station to Quebecor Media, the media unit of Montreal-based communications conglomerate Quebecor. The deal was completed on December 2, 2004; Quebecor gave CHUM $46 million (CAD) and Sun Media's 29.9% share in CablePulse24 for CKXT. Ownership was split, 75%/25%, between QMI's publicly-traded broadcasting unit Groupe TVA and wholly-owned publishing subsidiary Sun Media.

Subsequent to the station's sale to Quebecor, the new management cancelled its evening news program, Toronto Tonight, and announced it would expand its entertainment magazine program The A-List to one hour in length, airing weeknights from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m (which was later reduced to a weekend only timeslot, effective March 24, 2006). The station was officially renamed "SUN TV" on August 29, 2005. A late-night sports talk show, The Grill Room, premiered on September 1.

SUN TV logo from 2007-2009.

Even before Toronto Tonight ended on June 30, 2005, former Toronto Tonight co-anchor Ben Chin announced he would be moving to Global Television Network as a senior news correspondent; later that summer he decided instead to enter political life as a backroom organizer in Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's communications team. He soon ran as a Liberal candidate in the Toronto—Danforth by-election in March 2006, but lost to Peter Tabuns.

Chin's Toronto Tonight co-anchor Sarika Sehgal was also let go at the same time. In late 2005, Sehgal joined the 24-hour news channel CBC Newsworld as a host. In the winter of 2003, Toronto Tonight correspondent Chris Mavridis left to join CBS News as a New York based network correspondent. In addition to anchoring and reporting, Mavridis helped create new programming for the network's broadcast radio and online divisions.

Roz Weston joined ET Canada. Natasha Ramsahai, the morning weather person on Toronto Today, is now a meteorologist for CBLT, while Bill Coulter, the evening weather person on Toronto Tonight, is now a meteorologist for CIII. Tracy Moore and Dina Pugliese both joined Citytv Toronto. Wei Chen is now a host on CBC Radio One.

CKXT-TV is the only English-language independent television station outside of religious & community television stations in Canada currently on the UHF band.

The station applied for rebroadcasters in Ottawa and London in 2007, in order to improve its reach across southern Ontario.[5] The move would give the station coverage roughly equal to that of Citytv, OMNI.1 or OMNI.2. On September 14, 2007, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved CKXT's request, giving the station channel 26, digital 19 in London; and channel 54, digital 62 in Ottawa.[6] SUN TV later applied to change its digital channel in Ottawa to 20; this was given approval on June 17, 2008[7] and began transmissions in September 2008. As of late December 2008 (exact date not known) CKXT was broadcasting in London in high definition on channel 19.1 and standard definition on channel 19.2.

On December 1, 2009, the CRTC approved an application on behalf of Quebecor Media, whereas, through a corporate reorganization, Groupe TVA would acquire SUN Media's 25% stake in CKXT.

Current programming

Under its current management and branding, the station has met its Canadian content obligations primarily by airing repeats of older Canadian series such as King of Kensington, The Beachcombers, Danger Bay, Ready or Not, My Secret Identity, Super Dave and Side Effects.

The performance of CKXT under Quebecor was no better than it was under Craig — in March 2006, the Canadian Media Guild announced that 13 employees would be laid off from the station, including its entire marketing department, and Inside Jam (the rebranded A-List) would be relegated to weekends only. A new program, Canoe Live, was launched in May 2006 to poor reviews.[8]

At the same time, the station stepped up its acquisitions of U.S. network series, albeit mainly the "leftovers" not obtained by other Canadian networks. The fall 2006 schedule, for instance, included Veronica Mars, 60 Minutes, COPS, America's Most Wanted and Girlfriends. The first four programs aired on other Canadian television networks but with poor ratings.

CKXT also carried both of the original MyNetworkTV telenovelas, Desire and Fashion House in 2006, although it scheduled them in the afternoons rather than in prime time. Due to low ratings, the station elected not to air future MNTV telenovelas after the first two series concluded on December 5, 2006. With the conversion of the CH television system to E! Canada, CKXT also picked up some of CHCH-TV's former daytime programming, including the long-running American game show The Price Is Right, which has since moved to OMNI.2.

On June 14, 2010, Channel Zero and CHEK Media Group (current owners of CHCH-TV, CJNT-TV, and CHEK-TV which they acquired respectively after the E! system folded) announced it was acquiring the rights to virtually all of the first-run U.S. series that had aired on CKXT during the 2009-10 season, including Smallville, Supernatural, 60 Minutes, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!.[9] The programming announcement came amidst speculation that CKXT parent Quebecor Media was planning to launch a new news channel, with some of the rumours suggesting that CKXT might be part of the new venture.[10] On June 15, 2010, Quebecor confirmed its plans for the new Sun News Network, or Sun News, with a scheduled launch date of January 1, 2011. As part of its plans for Sun News, Groupe TVA submitted an application to the CRTC to replace CKXT's licence with a new, 3-year Category 1 specialty channel licence for the news channel. The Category 1 application was declined by the CRTC in July 2010, but a Category 2 application was approved in November 2010. This left CKXT's fate in 2011 unclear (Quebecor management does not plan to convert CKXT to an over-the-air all-news format).[11]

CKXT will remain on the air for at least the early portion of 2011, but with no local programming, and mainly broadcasting movies (three movies each weekday, Monday through Friday, at 8 A.M., 1 and 8 P.M.; and a quadruple-feature of movies on Saturdays and Sundays at 3, 5, 7 and 9 P.M.), along with paid programming and a handful of "off-network" series reruns. Many observers[who?] predict that by the Spring of 2011, CKXT may indeed go off the air. Under the original plan, this station would be the third major TV station in Canada (and the first in a big-three Canadian city) to have gone dark since 1977 (when CFVO-TV in Hull, Quebec left the air; all other defunct stations in Canada became repeaters of other stations almost seamlessly), the other being CHCA-TV in Red Deer, Alberta, and CKX-TV, a CBC affiliate in Brandon, Manitoba in 2009. CKX's license is still active after the station's closure, although CHCA's license was revoked in December 2009 and regarding CFVO-TV's license transferred to Radio-Quebec (now Télé-Québec) as that station later became CIVO-TV. However, Quebceor has since applied to the CRTC to continue operations of CKXT-TV after August 2011, though its intentions have yet to be made clear.[2]

Transmitters

Map all coordinates using OpenStreetMap

Download coordinates as:

Station City of licence Channel ERP HAAT Transmitter Coordinates
CKXT-TV-1 Hamilton 45 (UHF) 19 kW 193.1 m 43°12′27″N 79°46′27″W / 43.20750°N 79.77417°W / 43.20750; -79.77417 (CKXT-TV-1)
CKXT-DT-1 Hamilton 15 (UHF) 8.6 kW 193.1 m 43°12′27″N 79°46′27″W / 43.20750°N 79.77417°W / 43.20750; -79.77417 (CKXT-DT-1)
CKXT-DT-2 London 19 (UHF) 7.0 kW 313.6 m 42°57′20″N 81°21′19″W / 42.95556°N 81.35528°W / 42.95556; -81.35528 (CKXT-DT-2)
CKXT-DT-3 Ottawa 20 (UHF) 9.3 kW 332.9 m 45°30′11″N 75°51′01″W / 45.50306°N 75.85028°W / 45.50306; -75.85028 (CKXT-DT-3)

Digital television and high definition

Subchannels are for the Ottawa and London digital repeater only

Digital channels
Ottawa London Programming
20.1 19.1 CKXT-DT-2/3 HD feed
20.2 19.2 CKXT-DT-2/3 SD feed

The same program content is duplicated on both subchannels.

After the analogue television shutdown and digital conversion, which takes place on August 31, 2011[12], CKXT-DT, if it is still broadcasting, will move from its current pre-transition channel number, 66, to its post-transition channel number, 40. CKXT-DT-1 in Hamilton, Ontario will move to 45, the channel used for the station's analogue broadcasts. However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers will display CKXT-DT's virtual channel as 52.1.

References

  1. ^ Quebecor Media (press release) (June 15, 2010). "Quebecor Media Invests in New English Canadian TV News Channel". Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  2. ^ a b Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (2011-02-14). "Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2011-95". Retrieved 2011-02-14.
  3. ^ Torstar (press release) (April 8, 2002). "CRTC Denies Torstar Applications For TV Licenses". Retrieved June 16, 2010.
  4. ^ Scott, April (Spring 2004). "Problem Child". Retrieved January 29, 2011.
  5. ^ [1]
  6. ^ CRTC Decision 2007-352
  7. ^ [2]
  8. ^ azerbic - Antonia Zerbisias - Toronto Star Blog
  9. ^ Etan Vlessing (June 14, 2010). "Channel Zero loads up on U.S. network series". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved June 15, 2010. [dead link]
  10. ^ Barbara Shecter (June 10, 2010). "Quebecor seen seeking all-news channel licence". National Post (via Vancouver Sun). Retrieved June 15, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
  11. ^ "CRTC refuses Sun TV’s bid for preferred status on dial", from The Globe and Mail, July 15, 2010.
  12. ^ http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/oca-bc.nsf/en/ca02336e.html
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