CBC Television - Over-the-air Digital Television Transition

Over-the-air Digital Television Transition

The CRTC ordered that in 28 "mandatory markets," full power over-the-air analogue television transmitters had to cease transmitting by August 31, 2011. Broadcasters could either continue serving those markets by transitioning analogue transmitters to digital or cease broadcasting over-the-air. Cable, IPTV, and satellite services are not involved or affected by this digital transition deadline.

While its fellow Canadian broadcasters converted most of their transmitters to digital by the Canadian digital television transition deadline of August 31, 2011, CBC converted only about half of the analogue transmitters in mandatory to digital (15 of 28 markets with CBC TV, and 14 of 28 markets with SRC). Due to financial difficulties reported by the corporation, the corporation published digital transition plans for none of its analogue re-transmitters in mandatory markets to be converted to digital by the deadline. Under this plan, communities that receive analogue signals by re-broadcast transmitters in mandatory markets would lose their over-the-air (OTA) signals as of the deadline. Rebroadcast transmitters account for 23 of the 48 CBC and SRC transmitters in mandatory markets. Mandatory markets losing both CBC and SRC over-the-air signals include London, Ontario (metropolitan area population 457,000) and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (metro area 257,000). In both of those markets, the corporation's television transmitters are the only ones that were not planned to be converted to digital by the deadline.

Because rebroadcast transmitters were not planned to be converted to digital, many markets stood to lose CBC or SRC, or both. As a result, only 7 of the markets subject to the August 31, 2011, transition deadline were planned to have both CBC and SRC in digital, and 13 other markets were planned to have either CBC or SRC in digital. In mid-August 2011, the CRTC granted the CBC an extension, until August 31, 2012, to continue operating its analogue transmitters in markets subject to the August 31, 2011 transition deadline. This CRTC decision prevented many markets subject to the transition deadline from losing signals for CBC or SRC, or both at the transition deadline. At the transition deadline, Barrie, ON lost both CBC and SRC signals as the CBC did not request that the CRTC allow these transmitters to continue operating.

In markets where a digital transmitter was installed, existing coverage areas were not necessarily maintained. For instance, the CBC implemented a digital transmitter covering Fredericton, New Brunswick in the place of the existing transmitter covering Saint John, New Brunswick and Fredericton, and decided to maintain analogue service to Saint John. According to CBC's application for this transmitter to the CRTC, the population served by the digital transmitter would be 113,930 people versus 303,465 served by the existing analogue transmitter. In Victoria, the replacement of the Vancouver analogue transmitters with digital ones only allowed only some northeastern parts of the metropolitan area (total population 330,000) to receive either CBC or SRC.

CBC announced on April 4, 2012, that it will shut down all of its approximately 620 analogue television transmitters on July 31, 2012 with no plans to install digital transmitters in their place, thus reducing the total number of the corporation's television transmitters across the country down to 27. According to the CBC, this would reduce the corporation's yearly costs by $10 million. No plans have been announced to use subchannels to maintain over-the-air signals for both CBC and SRC in markets where the corporation has one digital transmitter. In fact, in its CRTC application to shut down all of its analogue television transmitters, the CBC communicated its opposition to use of subchannels, citing, amongst other reasons, costs.

The CBC had stated that the "useful life of CBC/Radio-Canada’s satellite distribution backbone for analogue transmission ends in 2013" and that it "will not reinvest in that infrastructure given the inevitability of analogue obsolescence."