CJDC-TV

CJDC-TV

Dawson Creek, British Columbia Canada
Branding	CJDC-TV CTV Two Dawson Creek
Channels	Analog: 5 (VHF) Digital: allocated 31 (UHF)
Affiliations	CTV Two (O&O; 2016-present)
Owner	Bell Media (Bell Media Radio G.P.)
First air date	January 15, 1959
Call letters' meaning	CJ Dawson Creek
Sister station(s)	CIVT-DT, CIVI-DT, CFTK-TV
Former affiliations	CBC Television (1959-2016)
Transmitter power	9.5 kW
Height	312.7 m
Transmitter coordinates	55°43′44″N 120°26′47″W / 55.72889°N 120.44639°W / 55.72889; -120.44639
Website	CJDC-TV

CJDC-TV is a CTV Two owned-and-operated television station in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Canada. It broadcasts an analogue signal on VHF channel 5 from a transmitter near 233 Road in Peace River.

Owned by Bell Media, it is part of the Great West Television system, and its studios located on 102 Avenue and 9 Street in Dawson Creek. This station can also be seen on Shaw Cable channel 3.

History

CJDC first went on the air on January 15, 1959, and was originally owned by Mega Communications, the owner of CJDC radio. It was the Michaud family that introduced radio and television to the BC Peace River region. Henry and Mike Michaud, also known as Mike Laverne, started the station in 1959. Before CJDC-TV went to air Mike Laverne went to Toronto to visit advertising agencies and hire a news editor to run the radio and television news services. Mike was successful in getting some new national ads for CJDC-TV and hired Australian-born Val Wake as the first news editor of the station's newscast. At the start the only visuals used by the newscast were 35mm transparencies.

The station was originally part of a two-station "sub-network" called Northern Television (NTV) since the early 1990s, until 2002, when it was disbanded and re-launched as Great West Television (joined by CKPG-TV). NTV and GWTV's programming consisted of mainly American shows imported and aired on CHUM Limited's NewNet/A-Channel stations, mixed with CBC's own programming. Great West Television itself would later become virtually non-existent in October 2006, when the CBC expanded its programming schedule to 24 hours a day and the GWTV affiliates accordingly dropped all syndicated programming to accommodate the new CBC schedule, leaving only local news as the remaining parts of GWTV.

CJDC was owned by Standard Broadcasting from 2002^[1] until the fall of 2007, when Astral Media acquired most of the company's assets.^[2]

On March 16, 2012, it was announced Bell Canada would be acquiring Astral Media for $3.38 billion.^[3] However, the deal was rejected by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) that fall.^[4] Bell submitted a revised takeover proposal in 2013, in which it will sell off a number of assets but keep CJDC. Bell has committed to maintaining the station's current conditions of license, including CBC affiliation, until the end of its license term in 2017.^[5] Bell owns two networks of its own, CTV and CTV Two, which compete with CBC. The deal was approved by the Competition Bureau in March 2013,^[6] and by the CRTC in June 2013.^[7][8]

On October 28, 2015, the CRTC made public an application by Bell to disaffiliate CJDC from CBC Television effective February 22, 2016, at which point the station is scheduled to begin airing programming from Bell's CTV Two system. Bell and the CBC agreed to an early termination of CJDC's affiliation agreement on October 5.^[9] Any TV service providers serving the region and not already carrying a CBC Television owned-and-operated station such as CBUT Vancouver (or potentially CBXT or CBRT from Alberta, in light of Dawson Creek being on Mountain Time) on their basic services will have to add one by the disaffiliation date in order to comply with CRTC regulations. It is now available on cable and satellite effective the same day.^[10]

Local programming

CJDC currently produces local newscasts from 6-7 p.m. and 11 p.m.-12 a.m. on weeknights. Unlike its sister station CFTK-TV in Terrace, CJDC is located in the Mountain Time Zone. Thus, its supper-hour newscast does not directly compete with the high-rated News Hour on Global BC and as such, it receives respectable ratings (according to BBM Canada). During daylight saving time, CJDC is also located in the Pacific Time Zone.

Transmitters

CJDC-TV was previously repeated on CBC-owned rebroadcasters in Fort St. John, Pouce Coupe and Chetwynd. Due to budget cuts handed down on the CBC in April 2012, the CBC announced several austerity measures to keep the corporation solvent and in operation; this included the closure of the CBC and Radio-Canada's remaining analogue transmitters, including all CBC-owned transmitters rebroadcasting private stations on July 31, 2012.^[11]

On April 23, 2015, the transmitter for CJDC-TV-1 was destroyed in a fire.^[12] Bell Media subsequently applied on May 5 for permission to delete the transmitter, citing the fact that they had received no phone calls from viewers regarding the loss of the station (since they receive it locally on cable and DTH satellite television service). Bell further justified this by saying it would cost at least $35,000 to replace the destroyed transmitter. and it brings in no revenue of its own to the station.^[13][14]

References

External links

• CJDC-TV
• Canadian Communications Foundation - CJDC-TV History
• Query the REC's Canadian station database for CJDC-TV
• Query the REC's Canadian station database for CBCD-TV
• Query TV Fool's coverage map for CJDC