Media of Canada - Television Broadcasting

Television Broadcasting

The Canadian television broadcasting industry is split between public and private ownership. Canada currently has 130 originating television stations, which broadcast on 1,456 transmitters across the country, on both the VHF and UHF bands.

In addition to the public Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio-Canada, which operates both English and French television networks, there are four major private TV networks. CTV and Global broadcast in English, and are available throughout the country. TVA and V broadcast in French and are available over the air only in Quebec (and some communities in Ontario and New Brunswick which are near the Quebec border), although TVA is available across Canada on cable. Radio-Canada (the French division of the CBC), TVA and V function in the particular cultural context of Quebec television. Most network stations are owned and operated by the networks themselves, although all networks have some affiliates with different ownership.

In addition, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, a service devoted mainly to programming from the First Nations, is considered a network by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, although the network airs terrestrially only in the three Canadian territories, and is available only on cable in most of Canada.

There are, as well, a number of smaller television systems:

• Citytv
• A
• CTS
• Joytv
• Omni Television

Several provinces maintain provincial public broadcasting networks in addition to the CBC:

• Télé-Québec
• TVOntario and TFO
• Saskatchewan Communications Network
• Knowledge (British Columbia)

Unlike in the United States, where a statewide public network is usually the state's primary PBS member station, the provincially owned public systems in Canada are not CBC affiliates, but distinct networks which offer entirely different programming schedules.

Only CBC/Radio-Canada, TVA and APTN are officially considered national networks by the CRTC, while V is a provincial network in Quebec. CTV and Global are legally considered "television services" even though they operate as networks for all practical purposes.

As well, there are a few independent stations, including CFTU in Montreal, CJON in St. John's and CJIL in Lethbridge. However, most of these are not general entertainment stations like independent stations in the United States, but are instead specialty community channels or educational services. CJON is the only independent commercial station currently operating in Canada, although CJON sublicenses a mix of programming from Global, CTV and other sources rather than purchasing program rights independently.

TV station callsigns in Canada are usually made up of four letters, although two stations have three call letters (CKX in Brandon and CKY in Winnipeg) and some (primarily CBC-owned Radio-Canada stations) have five. The first call letter is always C, and callsigns of privately owned television stations start with the two-letter combinations of CF, CH, CI, CJ, or CK. The combinations CG, CY, CZ and several combinations beginning with V and X are also assigned to Canada, but to date no Canadian television station has ever been licensed to take a call sign within those ranges.

CBC-owned stations use call letters beginning with the combination CB (through a special agreement with the government of Chile); private affiliates of the CBC use the same combinations as other private stations. The CBC has also sometimes directly acquired former private affiliate stations; these usually (although not always) retain their historic call sign rather than changing to a CB call.

While Canadian TV stations are technically required to identify themselves over the air by their call letters, the rule is rarely enforced by the CRTC. As a result, many TV stations never use their call letters for any purpose other than official CRTC business, and are instead identified by a brand such as CTV Northern Ontario, OMNI.1 or Global BC.

There is no clear rule for the call letters of rebroadcasters—some are labelled by the call-letters of the originating station, followed by a number, while others have their own distinct call letters. Low-power repeater transmitters (LPRTs) have their own unique callsign format, which consists of the letters CH followed by four numbers. Some rebroadcast transmitters are licensed as semi-satellites, which are licensed to air separate commercials (and, on rarer occasions, a limited amount of distinct programming) targeted to their community of license.

Canada also has a large number of cable channels. For a more extensive list of Canadian TV broadcast outlets, see List of Canadian television channels.

Although all broadcast networks in Canada are required to produce and air some Canadian content, only the English and French networks of the CBC run predominantly Canadian-produced schedules. (The English network does run some imported programming, such as Coronation Street, Doctor Who and Emmerdale, the game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, and strip reruns of The Simpsons and Arrested Development.) Both CTV and Global have at times faced criticism over their level of commitment to producing and airing Canadian programming. Both networks often find it easier to purchase rights to hit American series than to invest in Canadian productions, which are often prohibitively costly for the comparatively small size of the Canadian market. The French-language networks traditionally have had less difficulty meeting their Canadian content obligations, as the language difference makes Francophone audiences much more readily receptive to home-grown programming than to dubbed American imports.

Digital television is an emerging technology in Canada. Although some TV stations have begun broadcasting digital signals in addition to their regular VHF or UHF broadcasts, this is not yet as widespread as in the United States. Although most markets have digital channel assignments already in place, to date digital broadcasts have only launched in the largest metropolitan areas. Digital television sets are available in Canadian stores, but are not widely owned by consumers at this time.

Several broadcasters, including the CBC, have argued that there is no viable business case for a comprehensive digital conversion strategy in Canada. At CRTC hearings in 2007 on the future direction of regulatory policy for television, broadcasters proposed a number of strategies, including funding digital conversion by eliminating restrictions on the amount of advertising that television broadcasters are permitted to air, allowing terrestrial broadcasters to charge cable viewers a subscription fee similar to that already charged by cable specialty channels, permitting license fees similar to those which fund the BBC in the United Kingdom, or eliminating terrestrial television broadcasting entirely and moving to an exclusively cable-based distribution model.

In May 2007, the CRTC set August 31, 2011 as the deadline for digital conversion in Canada. This is approximately two years later than the cutoff date in the United States. The CRTC ultimately decided to relax restrictions on advertising as the funding mechanism. However, a CRTC statement issued in June 2008 indicated that as of that date, only 22 digital transmitters had been fully installed across the entire country, and expressed the regulator's concern that Canada's television broadcasters were not adequately preparing for the shift to digital broadcasting.

See also: List of Canadian television series