.svg) | |
 Global Kingston's studios on Queen Street in downtown Kingston. | |
| |
|---|---|
| Channels | |
| Branding | Global Kingston;CKWS News on Global Kingston |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations | 11.1:Global |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| CHEX-DT,CIII-DT,CFMK-FM,CKWS-FM | |
| History | |
First air date | December 18, 1954 (1954-12-18) |
Former call signs | CKWS-TV (1954–2013) |
Former channel numbers | Analog: 11 (VHF, 1954–2013) |
Call sign meaning | The Kingston Whig-Standard |
| Technical information | |
Licensing authority | CRTC |
| ERP | 9.4kW |
| HAAT | 312.5 m (1,025 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 44°9′59″N76°25′28″W / 44.16639°N 76.42444°W /44.16639; -76.42444 |
| Translator(s) | see§ Transmitters |
| Links | |
| Website | Global Kingston |
CKWS-DT (channel 11) is atelevision station inKingston, Ontario, Canada,owned and operated by theGlobal Television Network, a division ofCorus Entertainment. The station maintains studios on Queen Street in downtown Kingston, and its transmitter is located nearHighway 95 onWolfe Island, south of the city.
CKWS signed-on December 18, 1954, as an affiliate of theCBC network. It was originally a joint venture betweenRoy Thomson and the Davies family, owners ofThe Kingston Whig-Standard (the source of its callsign). The station has been sold three times: to the Kanatec Corporation, bought byPower Corporation in 1977 and to Corus in 1999.
Children across the country were exposed to CKWS programming in the late 1970s and 1980s by theHarrigan series – a particularly innocent and low budget show about aleprechaun, starring Barry Dale.[2]Shelagh Rogers ofCBC Radio fame started out presenting the weather for the station's newscasts.
During its days as a private CBC affiliate, it aired the minimum amount of CBC programming (40 hours per week).
On May 20, 2015, Corus andBell Media announced an agreement whereby Corus' CBC affiliates, including CKWS, would leave the public network and instead "affiliate" with CTV. The switch took effect on August 31, 2015.[3] Most TV service providers serving the region also carry CBCowned-and-operated stationCBOTOttawa, and any that did not have to add a CBC affiliate such as CBOT to their basic services to comply with CRTC regulations.[4] Legally, the partnership was described as a "program supply agreement", and not as an "affiliation" (a term with specific legal implications under CRTC rules), as Corus maintained editorial control over the stations' programming and the ability to sell local advertising, and did not delegate responsibility for CTV programs aired by the station to Bell Media. Affiliations also require the consent of the CRTC.[5]
The switch was approved by theCanadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission on August 27, 2015, when it dismissed objections byRogers Media (who argued that the change was an "affiliation" and thus required CRTC consent to implement, and was not in the public interest because it created duplicate sources of CTV programming), and by a resident who complained that as he only received television over the air, he would lose his ability to receive CBC Television as a result of the disaffiliation.[6]
On August 14, 2018, it was announced that CKWS' agreement with CTV would expire on August 27; the station subsequently became a Global owned-and-operated station, rebranding itself as Global Kingston.[7]
Until 2024, CKWS produced 28 hours per week of local news programming, with4+1⁄2 hours each weekday, and one hour on Saturdays and Sundays.[8] Prior to 2018, the station did not air any news programs on Sundays.
In September 2016, CKWS began to align its news programming withGlobal News rather thanCTV News; it added airings ofGlobal National in September 2016, and introduced a local morning show,The Morning Show (which was patterned after theGlobal News Morning format used in other markets, and shared its branding with theprogram of the same name aired by Global flagship stationCIII-DT in Toronto), on October 17, 2016, replacing CTV's national morning showYour Morning. At the same time, the station's noon newscast was shortened to half an hour, theCTV National News was dropped, and the station rebranded its newscasts fromNewswatch toCKWS News.[9][10][11][12]
Due to cuts by Corus Entertainment, most of CKWS's staff were laid off in July 2024, including much of the news department. Both CKWS andCHEX's newscasts were suspended for a period, before returning in a regionalized format using contributions from local reporters. Corus stated that it had "reimagined our broadcast schedule in Kingston,Peterborough, andKelowna with a focus on supper hour and late-night news programming".[13][14][15][16]
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | CKWS-DT | Global |
| 2.1 | CIII-DT | Global Toronto (CIII-DT) |
In January 2013, CKWS applied to the CRTC to convert its main Kingston transmitter to digital.[18] The station had not announced plans to convert its transmitters inPrescott andSmiths Falls to digital,[19] but did convert itsBrighton translator CKWS-TV-1 to digital channel 30 on August 31, 2011, as its former analog UHF channel 66 is now out-of-band. The Brighton digital signal was not initially broadcast in HD as it went on-air before CKWS converted its cable TV feed (and, later, its main signal) to high-definition digital TV.[20]
The main CKWS transmitter at Wolfe Island/Kingstonflash cut to digital on July 5, 2013, on its existing frequency, VHF channel 11.[21] The station was not obligated to convert this transmitter, as Kingston was not one of the 31 markets in which theCanadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) imposed a mandatoryanalog shutdown on August 31, 2011.[22]
| Station | City of licence | Channel | ERP | HAAT | Transmitter coordinates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CKWS-DT-2 | Prescott | Digital: 28 (UHF) Virtual: 26 | 0.13 kW | 118.2 m (388 ft) | 44°49′55″N75°31′16″W / 44.83194°N 75.52111°W /44.83194; -75.52111 (CKWS-TV-2) |
| Station | City of licence | Channel | ERP | HAAT | Transmitter coordinates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CKWS-TV-3 | Smiths Falls | 36 (UHF) | 10 kW | 100 m (328 ft) | 45°0′42″N76°3′16″W / 45.01167°N 76.05444°W /45.01167; -76.05444 (CKWS-TV-3) |
| CKWS-DT-1 | Brighton | Digital: 23 (UHF) Virtual: 30 | 0.938 kW | 158.6 m (520 ft) | 44°2′40″N77°47′35″W / 44.04444°N 77.79306°W /44.04444; -77.79306 (CKWS-DT-1) |
Although CKWS' Smiths Falls repeater overlapped its signal with that of CBC owned-and-operated station CBOT/Ottawa while CKWS was a CBC affiliate, CKWS-TV-3 usually served theBrockville area, along with the station's Prescott rebroadcaster.[23] In 2018, Corus applied to the CRTC to shutdown several of its transmitters, including CKWS-TV-3.[24]
As a result of a CRTC decision[25] in December 2020, CKWS-DT-1 shuttered its transmitter in Brighton on August 31, 2022. CKWS-DT-1 is now available via sub-channel on CHEX-DT out of Peterborough. CKWS-DT-1 briefly broadcast on UHF 23 (virtual channel 30) before ultimately being shuttered as it was required to vacate UHF 30 as a result of the DTV repack.