In 2007, significant ownership changes occurred inCanada'sbroadcast television industry, involving nearly every private English-languagenetwork andtelevision system. In addition to the shuffling ofnetwork affiliations and mergers involving various networks, several newtelevision stations andrebroadcast transmitters also signed on the air.
In 2006, following the death of longtime chairmanAllan Waters,CHUM Limited decided to cease operations and sell its broadcasting assets to a willing bidder. Bell Globemedia (laterCTVglobemedia, nowBell Media) announced a $1.7 billion takeover offer for CHUM on July 12 of that year.[1]
Bell Globemedia initially intended to retain CHUM'sCitytv television system and its five large-market stations, as well as the company's numerousspecialty channels; Bell would also sell off the smaller-marketA-Channel stations along with several specialty channels.[1]Rogers Communications originally placed a bid to purchase the A-Channel stations;CKX-TV (channel 5) inBrandon,Manitoba;Alberta educational stationAccess; and specialty channelsSexTV andCanadian Learning Television.
However, theCanadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) denied CTV's acquisition of the Citytv stations, as all five stations –CITY-TV (channel 57) inToronto,CKVU-TV (channel 10) inVancouver,CKEM-TV (channel 51) inEdmonton,CKAL-TV (channel 5) inCalgary andCHMI-TV (channel 13) inPortage la Prairie-Winnipeg – were based in markets where CTV already maintainedowned-and-operated stations (O&O), and therefore CTV's retention of Citytv would have violated a provision in the Commission'smedia ownership limits, which bar broadcasters from owning two English-language television stations in majormetropolitan areas. CTV was, however, allowed to retain control of the A-Channel stations (a few of the A-Channel stations were based in cities adjacent to the major five metropolitan areas such asVictoria, British Columbia;London andBarrie, Ontario; CRTC rules permit English-language commercialtwinsticks in major markets provided that the stations have differingcities of license) and all of CHUM's specialty channels.
Soon afterwards,Rogers Communications placed a new bid to purchase the Citytv system as a complement to its ownOmni Television, a system ofmulticultural stations that incorporate programming in various languages.[2]
After Bell Globemedia's bid to purchase Citytv stations, and sell off the A-Channel stations, CKX-TV, and several other digital specialty channels denied by the CRTC, the outcome resulted in CTV putting the Citytv stations in atrust held by corporate lawyer John McKellar in the interim while it searched for a buyer.[3] Rogers Communications, which had originally bid on the A-Channel stations prior to the CRTC decision, placed a new bid for the Citytv stations a few days later, which was approved by the CRTC on September 28, 2007.
CHUM Limited officially ceased operations on June 22, 2007. With the exception of the Citytv stations and itsFrench language music specialty channelsMusiquePlus andMusimax, all of the CHUM Limited properties – including the A-Channel stations, CKX-TV, (an independent television station in Brandon, Manitoba), its cable specialty services (such asMuchMusic,Star!,Space,Bravo! andCP24) andradio stations – became part of the restructured CTVglobemedia on that date.
A-Channel's original 2007–08 schedule was announced in early June, before the takeover received CRTC approval. By September, CTV had radically altered the system's schedule to give A-Channel broadcast rights to several series that CTV had not been able to find time slots for on its own fall schedule, includingTwo and a Half Men,Scrubs,30 Rock and theCanadian-produced seriesJeff Ltd. The A-Channel system along with theAtlantic Satellite Network were later rebranded as A on August 11, 2008.[4]
CTVglobemedia announced on November 16, 2007, that it and the channel's co-ownerComcast would sell their remaining interest in specialty channelOLN to Rogers Communications. Nearly five months later on March 8, 2008, the company announced that it would sell Canadian Learning Television toCorus Entertainment.
Rogers Communications had wanted to gain a multicultural station in Vancouver for a long time, but was either denied by the CRTC and competitor stationCHNM-TV (channel 66; branded as "Channel M"), or was outbid while vying for local stations up on the market by other broadcasters. In 2005, opportunity arose when Rogers was given permission to purchase religious broadcaster Trinity Television, owner ofFraser Valley television stationCHNU-TV (channel 66) and the license for Winnipeg stationCIIT-TV (channel 35).
In 2007, both Multivan Broadcasting (owner of CHNM) and Rogers submitted bids for television stations in Edmonton and Calgary during a call by the CRTC for broadcasters to submit newbroadcast licence applications. The licences were awarded to Rogers, which launchedCJCO-TV (channel 38) andCJEO-TV (channel 56) as religious stations in the respective markets on September 15, 2008. Shortly afterward, Multivan entered a tentative deal to sell CHNM to Rogers, citing the loss of the Calgary and Edmonton licenses as leaving the company no longer able to compete as a standalone station. On November 6, 2007, Rogers also announced the intention to sell its CHNU-TV and CIIT-TV toS-VOX.[5] Rogers' acquisition of CHNM[6] and its sale of CHNU and CIIT to S-VOX were both approved by the CRTC on March 31, 2008.
On September 1, 2008, CHNM was relaunched as an Omni Television station (branded as "OMNI British Columbia"),[7] while S-VOX relaunched CIIT and CHNU respectively as"Joytv 11" and "Joytv 10" (in reference to the cable channel allocations of both stations in their respective markets).
In addition, Rogers applied to purchase the Citytv stations for an estimated $375 million.[2] Media analysts suggested that with a more powerful media conglomerate such as Rogers behind them, the Citytv stations would effectively expand to become Canada's fourth full-fledged commercial television network, in effect if not immediately in name. The Citytv transaction was approved by the CRTC on September 28, 2007, with Rogers officially becoming the system's new owner on October 31. Rogers acquired the remaining interest in OLN from CTVglobemedia and Comcast on August 31, 2008.
On September 7, 2007,Canwest Global rebranded its CH television system asE!,[8] following an agreement it struck withComcast – then the parent company of theE! cable channel in theUnited States (now owned by Comcast divisionNBCUniversal) – 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 programE! 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&OCHCA-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.
Canwest, in conjunction withGoldman Sachs, also applied to the CRTC to purchase the assets ofAlliance 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.
The Crossroads Television System (later renamedYes TV in September 2014[11]), a religious broadcaster which also incorporates family-oriented secular programming and originated onHamilton, Ontario, stationCITS-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 andCKES-TV (channel 45) in Edmonton.
In 2007,Quebecor Media – owners ofTorontoindependent stationCKXT-TV (channel 52, branded as "SUN TV") – had applied for licences to operaterebroadcasttransmitters inLondon andOttawa, to bring the station on par with fellow Toronto-area competitors CITY-TV (theflagship of the Citytv system), CITS-TV,CFMT-TV (channel 47) andCJMT-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 tosimultaneous substitution. This request was approved by the CRTC; the newUHF rebroadcasters signed on the air in the fall of 2008, onanalog channel 26 anddigital channel 19 in London, and on analog channel 54 and digital channel 20 in Ottawa.
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 existingGlobal 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&OsCJNT-TV (channel 62) inMontreal andCHCH-TV (channel 11) in Hamilton were sold toChannel Zero, whileCHEK-TV (channel 6) in Victoria,British Columbia – mere hours before its planned 12 midnightPacific Time shutdown on the evening of 4 September – was sold to a consortium of station employees and local investors forCA$2;[13][14] all three became independent stations upon the closure of the E! system.CHBC-TV (channel 2) inKelowna, 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 newShaw 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! asE!.[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 asCTV Two five months later on August 29.[18]
On July 14, 2009, following Canwest's announcement of the E! system's shutdown, theJim Pattison Group signed an agreement with Rogers Communications to affiliate the company's three E!-affiliated stations –CFJC-TV (channel 4) inKamloops,British Columbia,CKPG-TV (channel 2) inPrince George, British Columbia, andCHAT-TV (channel 6) inMedicine Hat, Alberta – with Citytv that September, expanding that system's reach intoWestern 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'smorning show franchiseBreakfast Television; although the Pattison stations continued to produce midday and evening local newscasts, unlike CKVU, which dropped all of its other newscasts outside ofBreakfast 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 theprivate 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 asCity 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 produce15+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 asCFHD-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 aCategory C specialty service intended only for distribution bycable andsatellite 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 toZoomerMedia (owned by veteran Canadian television executiveMoses Znaimer) andLeonard Asper.[27]
CTVglobemedia was then reacquired byBell Canada in 2011 reorganized asBell Media. In 2012, however, Bell Media expanded by acquiringAstral Media.
On November 26, 2013, Rogers became the sole television and digital media rightsholder of theNational Hockey League Canadian broadcasts that took effect at the start of the2014–15 season; the deal was valued at $5.2 billion, twice as much as whatNBC paid for its own long-term contract with the league in 2011. AllRogers hockey coverage now airs on City, Omni, a group ofSportsnet channels andCBC Television (which signed a four-year deal) through various games including the revampedHockey Night in Canada.