CFHD (fictional)

CFHD (channel 47) is an independent multicultural television station in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, owned by Sam Norouzi and his family. The station's studios are located on Christophe Colomb Avenue in Montreal's Ahuntsic district, at the home of the family's production company Mi-Cam Communications. Its transmitter is located at Mount Royal Park, near Downtown Montreal.
==History==
===Origin===
The station signed on the air on September 8, 1997, but had its roots in the 1980s as La Télévision Ethnique du Québec (TEQ), a public access ethnic cable channel. It had plans on moving over-the-air as early as the early 1990s, but was dogged by financial problems. Even after it signed on, its finances were in such a state that it never signed on earlier than noon. Part of the problem was that its effective radiated power was only 11 kilowatts, easily the weakest full-power station in Montreal and one of the weakest in North America—roughly on the same level as low-power UHF stations in the United States. This effectively limited its over-the-air footprint to the Island of Montreal, Jésus Island and a few areas on the mainland; even in those areas, its signal was marginal at best. Most viewers could only get a clear picture on cable.
Many shows that had aired on TEQ for many years did not make the cut for CJNT because they did not meet the standards for commercial broadcasting. However, many of the shows that did make it were of somewhat marginal quality. Its commitment to ethnic groups was questioned, especially late at night when it would frequently show English-language infomercials for a psychic hotline.
The logo used when CJNT first went on the air in 1997. It was used until 2001 when Canwest bought under the CH brand.
 
===WIC and Canwest===
Western International Communications bought CJNT in 1999. WIC owned Montreal's CTV affiliate, CFCE-TV (channel 12), but was facing serious competition from Global, which had expanded into Quebec the same year CJNT signed on. WIC figured CJNT would give it much-needed leverage in Montreal. It planned to relaunch CJNT on the model of Canada's first multicultural station, CFMT-TV in Toronto, with 60% ethnic content and 40% American content. However, WIC was only able to buy the shares of CJNT held by Marie Griffiths, as ownership of the rest of the shares was being contested in court. It was not allowed to make changes to CJNT's license without majority ownership, and its plans became moot when Canwest bought WIC's television assets in 2000. Canwest already held controlling interest in Global station CKMI-TV, which was licensed in Quebec City but had activated a rebroadcaster in Montreal and moved the bulk of its operations there. The CRTC forced Canwest to put CFCF up for sale. Well aware that Canwest had bought CKMI to get its programming into Montreal, the CRTC ruled that Montreal's anglophone population was too small to permit a twinstick between CFCE and CKMI. However, Canwest was allowed to keep WIC's interest in CJNT, and bought the remaining shares.
CHMT Montreal logo and its horizontal version, used from 2007 to 2011. From 2007 to 2009, it was used for local and ethnic programming only. It then became the station's only branding from 2009 until 2011.
Canwest had CJNT file for bankruptcy, and changed its conditions of licence to reduce the ethnic content to 60%. On September 8, 2001, Global relaunched the station with a mixture of ethnic, English and French language programming. The bulk of the English-language shows came from Canwest's secondary television system, CH. For all intents and purposes, CHMT thus became the third CH station, and the only one actually licensed to a major Canadian city. The station remained a CH branded station until September 7, 2007, when Canwest decided to brand the station as "CHMT Montreal", while CH programming rebranded as "E! Montreal".
As a CH and later E! station, CHMT had many English-language American imports due to E!'s emphasis on American shows that could not fit onto Global's schedule. Some of E!'s programming, including documentary-based shows such as E! True Hollywood Story, were dubbed in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, to help partially fulfill CHMT's ethnic programming requirements.
During that period, CHMT aired WWE SmackDown! on Thursdays and Fridays until 2009.
For much of 2003 and 2004, CHMT fought a "commercial war" with Burlington, Vermont's Fox affiliate, WEFZ. Due to Canada's "simultaneous substitution" rules, WEFZ frequently moved syndicated reruns of That '70s Show around its schedule to keep its signal from being replaced with CHMT's on Montreal cable providers during the show's broadcast. However, whenever possible, CHMT, which was airing the same show, duplicated the move in order to maintain the signal substitutions. This resulted in a cat-and-mouse game in which the Montreal and Champlain Valley editions of TV Guide were often out of date before they were published. WEFZ depends on advertising in Montreal for its survival, since Montreal is 10 times more populous than that station's entire American viewing area.
===Return as a multicultural independent station===
The station started programming on December 11, 2013.
The station's call letters was changed from CFHG to CFHD.
Rogers reached an agreement to carry CFHD as part of Omni Regional, which distributes Omni programming as a must-carry specialty channel (with carriage revenue used to help provide additional funding to Omni). In August 2017, the CRTC relieved Vidéotron from carrying CFHD on its cable systems as a terrestrial channel, as it now carries the feed supplied by Rogers (marketed as "ICI Québec") as part of Omni Regional.
===CBC lawsuit===
On March 25, 2013, the CBC filed a lawsuit against Norouzi, requesting that the ICI trademark be expunged and the new station refrain from using ICI as its name. Its French arm, Radio-Canada, had registered a series of 31 trademarks surrounding the word "Ici", and announced in June 2013 that it would re-brand all of its media outlets under brands prefixed with Ici (such as "Ici Télé" for Télévision de Radio-Canada, but revised to "Ici Radio-Canada Télé" after criticism over the proposed removal of the long-standing "Radio-Canada" brand). Norouzi's trademark application for "ICI" was submitted in August 2012 and registered in September 2012, prior to the submission of the station's license application with the CRTC, while Radio-Canada's "Ici"-related trademarks were registered the following month. However, the CBC argued that his trademark was invalid because the division had used the phrase "Ici Radio-Canada" as part of its imaging since the 1930s, and that Norouzi's trademark application improperly declared that he had begun using the name in commerce, even before the station was officially unveiled or licensed.
In response, Norouzi considered the lawsuit and the CBC's ability to assert a trademark over an adverb to be "ridiculous", and stated that he intends to retain the ICI name and fight the corporation in court.
==Gallery==
CJNT-TV.png|CJNT's logo from 1997-2001
CH logo 2001.png|CJNT's logo from 2001-2005
CH logo 2005.png|CJNT's logo from 2005-2007
2022_04_09_0w9_Kleki.png|CJNT's logo from 2007-2009
CFHG_2009.png|CFHG's logo from 2009-2013
ICI_TV_2013.png|CFHD's logo from 2013-present
Category:Channel 47
Category:Montreal
Category:Quebec
Category:Canada
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1997
Category:Former CH/E! affiliates
Category:Former OMNI Television affiliates