Television in Canada: Difference between revisions

This article concerns television in Canada, including its history, programming and business. It will not deal with the technology of television except to say that, in Canada, as in the United States, it uses primarily the NTSC and ATSC formats.

As with most media in Canada, the television industry, and the television programming available in that country, are strongly influenced by the American media, perhaps to an extent not seen in any other major industrialized nation outside the U.S. itself.

History of television in Canada

While American television stations near the Canadian border were available to view for several years prior, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was the first entity to broadcast television from Canada, in October 1952 in both Montréal and Toronto. Private CBC affiliates began operating shortly after to supplement the Corporation's own stations. CTV, the first private network, began operating in October 1961, although some of its affiliates launched nearly a year prior.

Television programming

As outlined below, Canadian regulations ensure that the majority of programming aired by Canadian stations are of domestic origin. However, thanks to domestic newscasts and daytime programming, a very large percentage of the airtime in peak viewing hours (in most areas, 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.) can be devoted to programs of foreign origin, in large part due to the significant amount of programming available from the U.S., not to mention the availability of the major U.S. broadcast networks themselves via cable or satellite. A Canadian network is allowed to override, or simulcast, the cable/satellite feed of an American broadcast signal when they air the same program simultaneously, ensuring that the Canadian broadcaster, not the American broadcaster, is able to benefit from the advertising revenue associated with broadcasting to the Canadian audience. Arguably this simulcast right has led to an even greater glut of American programming on Canadian stations, including programs of little relevance to Canadian audiences, or poorly-received series that may never be seen outside North America.

Languages

While the majority of services operate in English, there are a growing number of similar services in the French language, serving primarily Québec. Other ethnic and multicultural services, serving one or more cultural groups outside of these two official languages, are also growing in strength.

The business and regulation of television

The Canadian broadcasting industry, including all programming services (over-the-air or otherwise) and all distributors, is regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which in most cases issues licences for each such operation. The CRTC issues licences pursuant to Canadian laws and the Commission's own regulations and conditions of licence, which regulate such matters as Canadian content, Canadian ownership, and accessibility issues such as closed captioning.

Among other regulations, all Canadian broadcasters and distributors must be at least two-thirds owned and controlled by Canadian citizens; also, all conventional stations, and most established specialty services, are required to air a majority of Canadian content, both throughout its schedule and in its primetime schedule.

Broadcast stations and systems

Unlike specialty services, conventional, or over-the-air, broadcast stations are permitted to air a wide variety of news, information, entertainment, sports and other programming without any restriction as to theme or content, and none restrict themselves in that regard. Religious television stations are an exception to the previous statement but must provide a variety of programs reflecting different points of view.

Nearly all broadcast stations have now been aligned, in one form or another, into national groups based on ownership and/or content. Many of these groups are designated as "networks", in the colloquial sense, below, although in the regulatory sense they may or may not be licensed networks.

The publicly-funded CBC operates two broadcast networks, CBC Television and la Télévision de Radio-Canada, operating in English and French respectively. Both are devoted primarily to domestic content, albeit with different results: The French-language service, which does not have significant foreign competition, has been considered a major success in recent years, while many have found much to be desired in its English counterpart over the same time. The English network in particular has suffered immensely due to various cuts to, and restructurings of, the CBC's budget, beginning in the late 1980s. Both networks are available over-the-air in most of the country.

The first tier of national private networks include CTV, Global, and TVA. CTV, presently the country's most-watched network, and Global are English networks which generally split the most popular foreign programs between them, with limited amounts of domestic content in primetime. Both are available over-the-air in most regions. TVA, a French-language network available throughout Québec over-the-air and elsewhere via cable and satellite, airs mostly programming made in Québec, to great success in that province; see also Quebec television.

The remaining networks or systems have a more limited reach or audience appeal. Effective September 2005, these are:

• Citytv - a system of intensely-local stations which focus on movies and niche-appeal programs in primetime
• CH - a secondary service owned by the parent of Global
• A-Channel - a secondary, series-based service owned by Citytv's parent
• TQS - a fledgling French-language network partly owned by CTV
• APTN - an Aboriginal service carried primarily via cable

Until September 2005, several of the soon-to-be Citytv stations operate under the A-Channel name, while those to be known as A-Channel are presently grouped under the NewNet banner.

Many smaller markets have stations that receive programming from more than one network. Most notably, NTV in Newfoundland and Labrador airs CTV's newscasts but relies mainly on Global for entertainment programs.

Major centres are also served by various multicultural, educational and religious stations / services. In Ontario, for instance, these are (respectively) OMNI.1 and OMNI.2, TVOntario and TFO, and CTS. In British Columbia, they are Channel M, the Knowledge Network, and NOWTV.

Other markets have a more limited selection: In Quebec, [[CJNT|CH Montreal] serves as a multicultural service, while Tele-Quebec and Canal SAVOIR are educational services. Alberta has privately-owned educational broadcaster ACCESS and religious station The Miracle Channel. The Saskatchewan Communications Network is another educational service.

The only major stations that cannot be strictly grouped under any of these categories are CKXT, a TVA-owned English station also known as Toronto 1, and KVOS Bellingham, Washington, a Clear Channel-owned station that exists primarily to serve the Vancouver-area audience. Both presently air movies, generally older than those seen on the Citytv stations, in primetime.

Many networks, including CBC, Radio-Canada, CTV, Global, and Citytv, have begun distributing digital television signals, although many are presently only available through cable and satellite providers, and in some cases over the air in selected markets such as Toronto.

Premium services

"Pay television" services were launched in Canada in the early 1980s but were largely unsuccessful in their original form. Many shut down, and two (TSN and MuchMusic) converted to specialty services as that format became more successful. However, movie-oriented services, including The Movie Network, serving Ontario and east, and Movie Central, serving Manitoba and west, both successors to the original general-interest pay services, have become very successful and very profitable, more so in recent years thanks to the shift towards digital terminals and the success of original series from sources such as HBO. Many ethnic services also operate under pay-TV licences.

Specialty services

Specialty programming services, unless their counterparts in the U.S., must be licensed by the CRTC. They cannot include general-interest services of the TNT variety, but do include such categories as sports (TSN), news (CBC Newsworld and CTV Newsnet), music (MuchMusic), arts (Bravo!) and drama (Showcase).

As well, certain American services, including CNN and Spike TV, are permitted, provided they are deemed not to directly compete with Canadian services. They are not subject to the same simulcast rules as the U.S. broadcast networks.

Distribution systems

There are two main multichannel distribution platforms in Canada - cable (provided, depending on the region, by companies such as Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications and Vidéotron), and satellite (provided nationally by both Bell ExpressVu and the Star Choice unit of Shaw). Selected telephone companies, including MTS and Telus, have begun to provide a third platform, essentially a form of cable over the telephone network. Other distribution means, such as MMDS (or "wireless cable"), have been much less successful and will likely disappear as the move towards fully digital television progresses.

See also: List of television stations in Canada by call sign