CFPL-DT (PatrZDZ's vision)

**CFPL-DT** (channel 10) is a television station in London, Ontario, Canada, part of the A-Channel system. It is owned and operated by CHUM Limited, it maintains studios and local transmitter are located on Communications Road on the southwestern side of London.

## History

CFPL was founded by Walter J. Blackburn, who also owned London's major newspaper, the London Free Press, as well as radio station CFPL on both the AM and FM bands. The television station first came on the air on November 28, 1953, with four hours of programming per day. That night, there was a major fire in London, on which CFPL's news program was able to report almost immediately during its first news hour. The station's transmitter was originally located atop the 500-foot (152 m) CFPL Television Tower, which was completed that year.

CFPL was the second privately owned station in Canada (CKSO-TV in Sudbury, now CICI-TV, was the first). Its news program was the first to be scheduled at 6:00 p.m., during "the supper hour", which set the standard for other stations in Canada. In 1973, the station expanded its supper-hour news to a full hour. CFPL also later became one of the first in Canada to broadcast in colour. From the day it began broadcasting, CFPL was affiliated with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 1961, CFPL-TV began transmitting its signal from a 314-metre (1,030 ft) tall guyed tower located in London, which is one of the oldest supertall television towers in Canada. In 1963, it became the CBC affiliate for Kitchener as well after CKCO-TV switched to CTV.

CFPL was the CBC's largest private affiliate, but wanted to produce and broadcast more local programming. This caused its relations with CBC to worsen over the years. CBC required affiliates like CFPL to carry a minimum amount of its schedule, and, according to station management, CBC programming was less lucrative by that time. Nonetheless, CFPL was a very successful station, and posted good profits. It finally disaffiliated with CBC and went independent on September 4, 1988. CFPL's slogan following disaffiliation was "The fun is here!", but the slogan did not last. With no CBC programming, such as The National and Hockey Night in Canada to attract viewers, ratings plummeted and so did revenues. By the end of 1989, the station was almost bankrupt, but tried to hang on as an independent station for another few years, even though its programming schedule did not have much beyond news to attract viewership.

In 1992, amid poor ratings and low revenues, the station was sold to Baton Broadcasting. In 1994, the various Baton stations, including CFPL, merged to form first "Ontario Network Television", then renamed Baton Broadcast System. Baton greatly increased CFPL's news department, hiring dozens of people and rebranding the newscast as News Now. While Baton focused much of energy on news programming, it cut much non-news local programming from many stations, including CFPL. The long-time lifestyles program One O'Clock Live was cancelled in early 1997, for example.

### As The New PL

In 1997, Baton sold CFPL and some of its other television stations to CHUM Limited. Under CHUM, CFPL joined the NewNet system and was accordingly rebranded "The New PL" on September 7, 1998.

### As A-Channel London

On August 2, 2005, CFPL was rebranded as A-Channel as part of CHUM Limited's rebranding of the NewNet stations. While Craig Media's A-Channel stations merged into Citytv following CHUM's acquisition of Craig Media in 2004.

## Local programming

Programs produced in the past

* London Tigers baseball (1989–1993)
* Reach for the Top
* The Red Green Show (1993–1994, in association with YTV)
* Take Your Choice (1960–1971)

### News operation

CFPL-DT presently broadcasts 29½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5½ hours each on weekdays, and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Ward Cornell anchored sports before moving on to Hockey Night in Canada. Prior to 1972, Hugh Bremner, anchor of Panorama Newsreel, became anchor of the new FYI. A half-hour summer replacement program at 5:30 p.m. (preceding the news) called Pie in Your FYI, a spoof of FYI was played one summer in the 1960s. It began with a CFPL personality being hit in the face with a pie, and featured skits and spoofs of advertising.

From 1972 to 1981, the flagship newscast, FYI was anchored by Jack Burghardt. During the 1980s, FYI was anchored first by Eric Sorensen (1981–1984), then Neil Stevens (a former weather anchor at CBET Windsor). In January 1985, CFPL hired its first female anchor, Kate Young, who co-anchored FYI with Stevens. Despite female news anchors becoming commonplace across Canada and the United States by the mid-1980s, this was a controversial move, and many London viewers were very upset by there being a female anchor. Young continued to anchor the 6:00 p.m. newscast for the next 17 years, and she became a well-known and respected face in the London community. Tragically, her co-anchor Stevens was killed in a car crash near Alvinston, Ontario early on July 17, 1987. Al McGregor was appointed as Young's co-anchor in 1988, a post he held for the next 10 years. Throughout the 1980s, the sports anchor was Pete James (now with CJBK radio), and the weather forecaster was Jay Campbell.

During the station's ownership by Baton, the newscasts were retitled News Now, which carried over into the CHUM era. When CHUM took over, the previously standard news format gave way to one replicating that used by sister station Citytv and other NewNet stations, in which anchors read the news standing up from a large open newsroom referred to as the "news environment".

#### Newscasts

Weekdays

* 6am - 9am: A-Channel Morning with Sean Irvine and Cheryl Weedmark (simulcast with CHWI)
* 12pm - 1pm: A-Channel News at Noon with Sean Irvine
* 6pm - 7pm: A-Channel News at 6 with Tara Overholt
* 11pm - 11:35pm: A-Channel News at 11 with Tara Overholt

Weekends

* 6pm - 6:30pm: A-Channel News at 6 with Reta Ismail
* 11pm - 11:30pm: A-Channel News at 11 with Reta Ismail