CJON-DT

CJON-DT, virtual and UHF digital channel 21, branded on-air as NTV (short for Newfoundland Television), is an English-language independent television station licensed to St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The station is owned by Newfoundland Broadcasting Company Ltd. CJON-DT's studios are located on Logy Bay Road in St. John's, and its transmitter is located in the city's Shea Heights section.

This article is about the television station in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. For the Canadian service of the Russian NTV network, see NTV Canada. For other uses, see NTV.

CJON-DT
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
Canada
ChannelsDigital: 21 (UHF)
Virtual: 21 (PSIP)
BrandingNTV (general)
NTV News (newscasts)
SloganCanada's Superstation
Programming
Subchannels21.1 NTV HD
21.2 CHOZ-FM
AffiliationsGlobal (entertainment and news programming)
CTV (news and sports programming)
Yes TV (entertainment programming)
Ownership
OwnerStirling Communications International
(Newfoundland Broadcasting Company Ltd.)
Sister stationsCHOZ-FM
History
First air dateSeptember 6, 1955 (1955-09-06)
Former call signsCJON-TV (1955–2011)
Former channel number(s)Analog:
6 (VHF, 1955–2011)
Former affiliationsCBC Television (1955–1964)
CTV (1964–2002; primary)
Global (1974–2002; secondary)
CH (2002–2007)
E! (2007–2009)
Call sign meaningCanada Joins On Newfoundland
(presumed meaning)
Canada St. JOhN's
(presumed meaning)
(Derived from former call letters of former AM sister station)
Technical information
Licensing authorityCRTC
ERP482.3 kW[1]
HAAT254.6 m (835 ft)
Transmitter coordinates47°31′31″N 52°42′48″W
Links
Websitentv.ca

On cable, the station is available on Rogers Cable channel 141 in St. John's and most of Atlantic Canada.[2] On satellite, it is carried across Canada on Bell Satellite TV channel 1008,[3] and Shaw Direct channel 112.[4]

History

In 1955, Newfoundland Broadcasting Company Ltd., owner of CJON radio (now CJYQ), applied for and received a licence for the first television station in Newfoundland. Newfoundland Broadcasting was jointly owned by Geoff Stirling and Don Jamieson. The station went on the air later that year on September 6, as a CBC Television affiliate. It was Newfoundland and Labrador's first television station, and remains the province's only privately owned station to this day. Stirling has contended that his was the only group willing to invest in such a station, although other sources have suggested that Stirling and Jamieson used their political connections to prevent the CBC from opening its own station in Newfoundland first. This scenario is somewhat unlikely because until 1958, the CBC was both the primary broadcast regulator in Canada and a broadcaster in its own right, the former role taken over in 1958 by the independent Board of Broadcast Governors (the forerunner of the CRTC). However, the CBC-owned CBYT in Corner Brook launched soon after, in 1959. When it began operations, CJON's first studios and offices were located at the Prince of Wales Building in Buckmaster's Circle and the transmitter on Kenmount Road.

In any event, the CBC launched CBNT in 1964, and CJON became an affiliate of the new CTV network. During the mid-1970s, it was known as NBC, for the "Newfoundland Broadcasting Company", until 1978 when WLBZ, the Bangor, Maine affiliate of the U.S.-based National Broadcasting Company, became available on cable (to be replaced later by WDIV-TV from Detroit, then WHDH from Boston and eventually WBTS-LD/CD from Boston). To avoid confusion, CJON was rebranded as NTV, although as late as August 1978, the Newfoundland Herald's TV listings continued to refer to NTV as NBC, including listing the local newscasts under the title NBC News.[5]

In 1972, CJON became one of the first television stations in Canada, if not the first, to broadcast around the clock every night (see "Overnight programming", below). In 1977, Stirling and Jamieson unwound their partnership, with Jamieson taking the AM radio stations, with CJON radio being renamed CJYQ. In later years, many of the AM stations were eventually sold, and in several cases shut down. Stirling kept NTV and the newly launched station CHOZ-FM. 1983 saw CJON and CHOZ's operations move to their present building on Logy Bay Road, with a new transmitter on the South Side Hills.

CJON was the only CTV affiliate not to participate in the network's 1993 restructuring from a cooperative to a corporation. However, it retained a nominal interest (less than 0.1 percent) until Baton Broadcasting bought controlling interest in the network in 1997.

NTV became available on C-Band satellite in September 1994. The original purpose of this was to ensure that viewers in rural regions were able to receive the best signal possible. It also brought the station to Labrador for the first time. However, it became a popular choice for satellite viewers across the continent, as NTV's signal was unscrambled (free). The station began to make reference of its new coverage area in its promotions and branding; it adopted the globe logo it maintains today and modified its slogan to "Your Five-Star Satellite Network". Due to issues involving program rights, it left C-Band in 1996. NTV eventually returned to C-Band, but as an encrypted digital signal which required an expensive (roughly $1,500) receiver to decode. It also became available on the Bell Satellite TV and Shaw Direct direct broadcast satellite services, beginning in 1997. The increased audience reach on these services and through digital cable services far beyond that in Newfoundland and Labrador alone has led the station to brand itself, most recently, as "Canada's Superstation".

Due to its location, some programs that NTV airs are first shown on this station before any other North American station airs them. This is signified with a "World Television Premiere" bumper that airs at the beginning of those programs, although in the case of some syndicated programming, the bumper may be used simply to indicate that the program airs on CJON-TV before the local U.S. affiliate airs it. For instance, The Oprah Winfrey Show aired on NTV at 2:30 p.m. NT (18:00 UTC in winter, 17:00 UTC in summer; compared to 5:30 p.m. NT via WCVB-TV from Boston or WXYZ-TV from Detroit) and may hence be indicated as a "world premiere", although WLS-TV in Chicago, where Oprah was based, aired the program at 9:00 a.m. CT (11:30 a.m. NT).

NTV disaffiliated from CTV in 2002 in a dispute over affiliation terms. For most of its tenure as a CTV affiliate, NTV had aired the base 40-hour block of CTV programming, including national advertising, essentially for free since CTV paid NTV for the airtime. It then purchased rights to additional CTV programming for which NTV could sell all advertising. However, early in the 21st century (around 2001 and 2002), CTV tried to make NTV pay for the base 40-hour block as well, with no possibility of airtime payments, in a form of reverse compensation. CTV then raised rights fees for national CTV programming well beyond what Stirling and other NTV officials claimed they could pay. As a result, NTV officially became an independent station at the start of the 2002–03 television season. However, for all practical purposes, it is a Global affiliate (although this did not include news programming, which it still primarily receives from CTV, until CJON added Global's national evening newscast in 2009). NTV is the only Canadian television station to broadcast two national news programs: Global's Global National and CTV's CTV National News and, until 16x9's cancellation in June 2016, it aired both 16x9 and CTV's newsmagazine series W5.

The disaffiliation did, however, remove one major side effect of NTV's carriage of CTV programming. Whenever possible, NTV promoted its brand and removed any traces of CTV branding, despite the fact that it was a CTV affiliate. The large opaque bug that resulted, one specifically modified to cover the CTV logo during network time, was the subject of significant mocking and complaining by viewers. Other Canadian stations have routinely used opaque bugs themselves when airing programming through U.S. networks with which the station had no affiliation. However, NTV's bug was so bright that some viewers complained it could have "burned" into television screens, ruining them. NTV now uses opaque bugs only for some U.S. simulcasts, while the remaining CTV News broadcasts are now "co-branded" with both logos.

Programming

1988 to 2002

Until the fall of 1992, CTV programming made up a clear majority of NTV's schedule, although acquired programming from CanWest Global and others was present. However, from 1992 on, when CTV reduced its programming to 40 hours per week, NTV suddenly became much more reliant on other broadcasters, primarily CanWest (which owned the Canadian rights to many dominant programs of the era such as The Simpsons and Seinfeld), but also Baton Broadcasting and WIC. Instead of relying on any one group, it took what it considered the best programming from all the groups, even after the Baton/CTV merger strengthened the CTV schedule considerably. NTV is the last CTV/Global station in the country.

During this period, and indeed well before, NTV consistently aired 4½ hours of prime time programming each night, a great deal of them being American imports, from 8:00 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. NT (11:00 p.m. ET), as opposed to the North American norm of three hours. In fact, in 1995–96, first-run prime time programming began at 7:30 p.m. and ran until 12:30 a.m. Although the net result was less than the mandated 50% Canadian content between 6:00 p.m. and midnight, this was not deemed to violate Cancon regulations as CTV National News did not feed an 11:00 p.m. AT edition until 1997, although the practice was maintained without CRTC complaint until disaffiliation in 2002.

2002 to present

As of fall 2002, NTV lost access to most CTV programming, but maintained rights to CTV National News, Canada AM, and other CTV news programming free of charge, on the condition that it continue to provide coverage of Newfoundland and Labrador events for CTV and CTV News Channel. Additionally, it purchased rights to additional CTV programming, such as Desperate Housewives, on an individual, per-season basis (Desperate Housewives aired on NTV in its first season but not afterward, and currently no CTV entertainment programming appears regularly on NTV; until 2006, some other CTV-owned properties such as the Academy Awards and the Juno Awards continued to air on NTV, but all have recently been dropped, although The Juno Awards have since reappeared on NTV as of 2009).

Most of NTV's entertainment programming since 2002 has been received pursuant to a program supply agreement with the Global Television Network; for example, Survivor, Family Guy, and The Young and the Restless. NTV's last public comment on the arrangement, at a CRTC hearing in 2002, was to the effect that it would expire at the end of the 2005–2006 season. However, with the addition of new Global programs to the NTV schedule during the spring and summer of 2006, all indications are that the agreement has been extended.

Since 2002, NTV's "prime time" hours have been reduced, running from 8:00 to 11:30 (followed immediately by CTV National News), with a subsequent further reduction in summer 2006 to three hours (8:30 to 11:30). This results from the recent addition of The Insider at 7:30 (replacing Frasier reruns) and Entertainment Tonight Canada at 8:00, both following the original ET at 7:00 (however, after two weeks of airing The Fishery Now from July 10 to 21, 2006, NTV started airing Star! Daily on July 24; The Insider moved to the overnight hours on July 10).

Unlike most Canadian stations, which fill essentially all of their unsold commercial airtime with program promotions or public service announcements, NTV frequently uses minute-long clips of music videos, usually at the end of a commercial break, in addition to its promos and its Public Service Announcements. Video usage has recently been relaxed, at least during parts of the regular broadcast day, with the addition of high-rotation news and weather updates of up to two minutes duration. However, music videos remain common during the overnight hours.

Local programming

As with many local stations in North America, non-news local programming was common in the station's early days but had decreased significantly by the 1990s. Since 2002, perhaps given the recent ratings dominance of CTV over Global (NTV's chief programming supplier), NTV has attempted to distinguish itself further through additional local programming, mainly from independent local producers. Examples include local wrestling promotion Legend City Wrestling on Saturday afternoons and fishing shows The Dimestore Fishermen and Newfoundland Sportsman. It also airs repeats of programs from the NTV archives, most frequently the retrospective series A Little Good News (later renamed NTV.ca), news program Canada in View (on Mondays), and speeches from Geoff Stirling during Captain Atlantis Late Night (on Saturdays).

Overnight programming

NTV's overnight schedule (between 1:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.) generally consists of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, A Little Late with Lilly Singh or Saturday Night Live followed by reruns and overflow programming unable to be accommodated in prime time. The overnight block then concludes with Scenes of Newfoundland, a full half-hour or hour dedicated to scenes of the province with traditional music from local artists playing in the background.

While, in fact, this schedule is followed more often than not, over the years there have been numerous instances where scheduled programming has been preempted, presumably at the behest of station owner Geoff Stirling. In its earliest days, a viewer might have seen a constant shot of a fish tank in the overnight hours. Over the years, the overnight hours have been filled by content featuring, among other things:

  • Stirling's metaphysical thoughts and home movies with his visits with gurus;
  • his interviews with the likes of Newfoundland premier Joey Smallwood and conspiracy theorist David Icke;
  • "computer animated art festivals;"
  • various features or animations starring Stirling-created superheroes such as Captain Atlantis (a.k.a. Captain Newfoundland) and Captain Canada;
  • a strung-together edit of two of Elvis Presley's three television specials, the '68 Comeback Special and Aloha from Hawaii, typically aired annually on the Friday nearest the anniversary of Presley's death;
  • Stirling's 1975 The Assassination of J.F.K., which promotes conspiracy theories surrounding the John F. Kennedy assassination, aired on the anniversary of Kennedy's death and repeatedly showing black-and-white footage of Kennedy being shot in full view as Stirling analyzes and Tom Clay's medley of "What the World Needs Now Is Love/Abraham, Martin and John" loops in the background;
  • The Unfolding American Spirit, a late-2000s montage of American historical speeches stretching up to and into the presidency of Barack Obama, typically aired on weekends nearest American patriotic holidays Independence Day and Memorial Day;
  • recordings of Stirling's speeches at various ceremonies;
  • an adaptation of Ted Russell's radio play "The Holdin' Ground;"
  • Newfoundland cultural songs, and other programs that are truly miscellanea.

Stirling quipped in a 2010 interview that this surreal programming was largely borne out of desperation to fill the 24-hour schedule: "Ted Turner bought up all the basketball." In another interview, he noted that much of the more eccentric programming was borne out of low budgets, as he felt the Canadian content regulations were unrealistic in expecting to be able to compete with American programs and their multimillion-dollar production budgets.

Other topics seen on the late night NTV programming schedule relate to Stirling's interests in eastern mysticism, as well as intestinal health, UFOs, crop circles, and the pyramids. Sterling was known to telephone master control from a remote location and order that a particular favourite program immediately preempt current programming, or that a particular effect be applied to the screen by the technician. Often multiple videos would be "layered" over each other, with unusual results. While things like this tend to anger viewers, Geoff Stirling's eclectic programming has its cult following. The NFB documentary Waiting for Fidel, featuring Stirling and Smallwood in Cuba awaiting an interview with Fidel Castro that never occurs, has been one of the more notable programs to air on NTV overnight.

Even if programming is not preempted, on occasion viewers may still see a message, likely from Stirling, displaying his opinions and thoughts as a "ticker" on the bottom of the screen. On one such instance, viewers of The Tonight Show (when that show was carried by NTV) claimed to see such a ticker announcement seeking the arrest and prosecution of a man who used NTV's logo on his website—generally considered to be a satirical one—without authorisation; the site has since been taken down.

NTV continues to carry a freeform content block from 2:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. on early Saturdays after the Friday night edition of A Little Late with Lilly Singh, billed as Captain Atlantis Special Presentation. Since spring 2019, the weekly Captain Atlantis broadcasts have been rerun on Saturday mornings. On a common night, programming will include an archival interview, speech, or presentation with Geoff Stirling and/or Joey Smallwood followed by one of assorted computer animated art festivals compiled by Stirling Communications International and/or other archival programming. This content is bookended by cartoons featuring Captain Atlantis and Captain Canada, archival music videos and cultural songs, and "The Twelve Laws of God".

News operation

CJON presently broadcasts 16 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with three hours each weekday and one hour on Sundays); the station does not broadcast any news programs on Saturdays.

It has frequently been promoted as "the award-winning NTV Evening Newshour", in reference to a RTNDA Canada "Best Newscast – Medium Market" award from 1998 (for a newscast aired in 1997), and several other awards for individual reports received since (overall, CBNT has won more RTNDA and AJA awards over the same period, and is the most recent area station to have won an RTNDA Best Newscast award, winning in 2009.[6]

Repackaged versions of the Newshour air at midnight and at 6:00 a.m. the following day. NTV Newsday, a live newscast that airs weekdays at noon, frequently also relies on content from the previous night's Newshour. NTV's newscasts are also seen on at least one television station in the United States—WZRA-CA (channel 48), an ethnic station in Tampa, Florida, has regularly carried NTV's newscasts as well as select CTV programming. In fact, NTV's website promotes the fact that NTV advertisers can reach Tampa viewers through WZRA, although the station's signal is only received well in northwestern parts of Tampa (WZRA is licensed to Oldsmar, Florida, a northwestern suburb of Tampa).

Retransmitters

The station once operated a network of retransmitters across the province. These transmitters were all analog and never converted to digital. Beginning in the 1990s, transmitters in smaller communities were shut down or spun off to community-based groups. More transmitters were shut down from 2006 to 2013.

The station's transmitters in Swift Current (CJSC-TV channel 10), Glenwood (CHSG-TV channel 7), and St. Alban's (CJST-TV channel 13) were shut down as of December 31, 2006;[7] transmitters in Bay Bulls (CJON-TV-4 channel 10) and Lawn (CJLN-TV channel 10) were shut down as of November 2011.[8]

On November 30, 2012, transmitters at Red Rocks (CJRR-TV channel 11) and Stephenville (CJSV-TV channel 4) were shut down; the station cited the age of the towers and the costs of the upkeep. The station also announced that their transmitter network would eventually close down in the coming years, due to the high cost of upkeep.[9] Deleted concurrently with CJRR and CJSV was the transmitter at Grand Bank (CJOX-TV-1 channel 2), which left the air in September 2012 following the failure of its transmitter; NTV also chose to close CJOX-1 instead of repairing it.[10]

On July 31, 2013, the remaining over-the-air retransmitters of NTV in Corner Brook, Deer Lake, Norris Arm, Bonavista, Clarenville, Argentia, and Marystown were discontinued.[11] Coupled with the closure of the CBC's analog repeater network in 2012, this left all of Newfoundland and Labrador outside of the St. John's area needing a cable or satellite subscription for "over-the-air" TV.

Digital television and high definition

Digital channels

In a rarity for a Canadian television station, CJON's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect Audio PSIP Short Name Programming[12]
21.11080i16:9Dolby Digital 5.1 (DD 2/0 DV)CJON-DTMain CJON-DT programming
21.2Audio onlyDolby Digital 2.0CHOZ-FMSimulcast of CHOZ-FM

Analog-to-digital conversion

In May 2011, CJON announced plans to broadcast in digital and in high definition. The analog transmitter serving the St. John's viewing area was shut off on the morning of July 11, 2011, in order to facilitate installation of the new digital HD transmitter. CJON began transmitting its digital signal on August 3, 2011, broadcasting on UHF channel 21.[13] CJON has opted to use channel 21, its actual digital channel, as its PSIP, instead of channel 6, its former analog channel.

Internet

NTV streams all of its local programming live through its Web site, with no geographic restrictions. The live Internet feed previously carried some of the American syndicated programs; these were dropped in September 2018. It has never carried network programming on the online feed. During times when it is not carrying local news, the NTV online feed simulcasts sister Top 40 (CHR) station 94.7 CHOZ-FM, accompanied by webcam shots overlooking St. John's.[14]

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References
  1. Broadcasting Information Bulletin CRTC 2012-109, February 20, 2012. Application # 2011-1487-6.
  2. http://tv.k-haven.com/RDC.htm
  3. "List of Bell Satellite TV Channels". TV Channel Lists. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  4. "National Channel Lineup (Numerical)" (PDF). Shawdirect.ca. Shaw Satellite G.P. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  5. Newfoundland Herald TV Week, week of August 19–25, 1978
  6. "Here & Now wins national newscast award". CBC.ca. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2009-05-24. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
  7. Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2007–11, February 1, 2007.
  8. Broadcasting Information Bulletin CRTC 2012-109, February 20, 2012.
  9. The Gulf News: "OZ FM, NTV to stop broadcasting from Red Rocks", November 26, 2012.
  10. "Broadcasting Information Bulletin CRTC 2013–62". Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. February 15, 2013. Retrieved February 17, 2013.
  11. Notice: Discontinuation of Analog "Over-the-Air" TV Archived 2013-07-05 at the Wayback Machine
  12. RabbitEars TV Query for CJON
  13. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-05-24. Retrieved 2011-05-05.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. http://ntv.ca/web-tv/
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