CIII-DT (PatrZDZ's vision)

**CIII-DT** (channel 41) is a television station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, serving as the flagship station of the Canwest Global System. Owned and operated by network parent Canwest (a subsidiary of Caribbean-based financial solutions firm Sygnus Corporation), CIII-DT maintains studios at 81 Barber Greene Road (near Leslie Street) in the Don Mills district of Toronto, and its transmitter is located atop the CN Tower in downtown Toronto.

The station reaches much of the population of Ontario through a network of 12 transmitters across primarily the southern and central portions of the province (as a result, it is the de facto Global outlet for the capital city of Ottawa through repeater CIII-DT-6).

## History

Ken Soble, the founder of CHCH-TV in Hamilton, envisioned a national "superstation" of 96 satellite-fed transmitters with CHCH as its flagship. In 1966, he filed the first application with the Board of Broadcast Governors for a network to be branded as NTV — however, the application faced various regulatory hurdles and underwent numerous revisions over the next number of years. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) eventually decided to go ahead with the publicly owned Anik satellite system instead of relying on private communications companies to build Canada's satellite broadcasting infrastructure, placing the NTV application in jeopardy after Power Corporation of Canada, a key investor in the plan, backed out.

In 1970, one of Soble's former employees, Al Bruner, teamed up with Peter Hill to revive the application under new ownership. Bruner and Hill's group, Global Communications, scaled back the original NTV proposal to a network of seven UHF transmitters in Southern Ontario, whose combined footprint would have provided at least secondary broadcast coverage from Montreal to Detroit. Global Communications still aspired to eventually build out Soble's original 97-station network, and viewed the seven-transmitter Ontario chain as an interim step. However, since CHCH was no longer involved in the application, Global's iteration of the plan also required the launch of a new station to serve as its flagship.

The station first signed on the air on January 6, 1974 as CKGN-TV (before its use by the station, the CKGN callsign had previously been used by what is now CTV owned-and-operated station CKNY-TV in North Bay from 1955 to 1962). It branded itself as the "Global Television Network," a name which reflected its then-unprecedented coverage of most of Southern Ontario from six transmitters (a seventh that would have reached Montreal was turned down) fed from a centralized studio. From its launch in 1974 until 2009, the station's main transmitter was licensed to Paris, a small town near Brantford, but Toronto became the station's primary city of licence following an amendment to the channel 41 licence in 2009. Through its entire history, however, the station's main studio facility has been based in a converted factory (built 1954 for Barber Greene Canada Limited) in the Don Mills area of North York (since 1998, located in Toronto).

It had hoped to be distinct from CBC and CTV by airing a number of its own Canadian-made programs. Three months later, however, many of these programs had been cancelled due to deep financial problems. It had made a serious blunder by signing on in the middle of the 1973–74 television season, and prospective advertisers did not have the money to spare for commercial spots. It barely registered as a blip in the ratings; in Toronto, for instance, it only drew a 2.5 share, just a fraction of those drawn by CBC and CTV. Its line of credit was yanked, and it was unable to meet daily expenses.

Amid losses of over a million dollars a month, the network was bailed out by two conglomerates in March 1974 – a Toronto-based group headed by Paul Morton and a Winnipeg-based group headed by Izzy Asper. By the fall, Global was forced to scrap its ambitious business model just to survive. Instead, it began airing as much non-Canadian content as allowed (at the time, Canadian content regulations required stations to broadcast domestically produced programs for 60% of its overall schedule, and 50% during prime time), becoming essentially a clone of CTV.

The Asper group bought controlling interest in 1985, making him the first western owner of a major Canadian broadcaster. In 1989, the two groups tried to buy out each other's shares, and the CRTC ended the contest by allowing Asper and his company, Canwest, to take full ownership.

The station's callsign was changed to CIII-TV in January 1984, in accordance with its 10th anniversary of broadcasting. The Windsor/Cottam transmitter would be an exception to the rebroadcasters that were also assigned the CIII calls that month for a few years as it continued to be identified in CRTC documents as CKGN-TV-1, perhaps because of licensing issues with nearby broadcasters in the Detroit market (the CKGN calls are now used by an FM radio station in Kapuskasing, Ontario).

## News operation

CIII-DT presently broadcasts 32 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6 hours each weekday and an hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). In addition to its main news department in Toronto, the station also operates a news bureau at the National Press Centre in Ottawa. CIII-DT also produces a weekly half-hour political program called Focus Ontario and Sportsline, a half-hour sports highlight show (airing Sunday-Friday at 11:30 p.m.).

Early on, its flagship news program Global News was developed under the guidance of Bill Cunningham, a veteran of CBC News; in the beginning, the newscast was anchored by Peter Trueman in Toronto and Peter Desbarats in Ottawa. During the news department's early years, its newscasts were one of the most successful and important programs that CKGN/CIII had. Trueman has noted in his memoir that the programme was groundbreaking: "Our newsroom-studio combination ... served as a model for the new CHAN-TV facilities in Vancouver, and it is currently [1979] the inspiration for Ted Turner's new Cablenews operation in Atlanta". The CBC also looked to it for inspiration when it changed its national news format in the early 1980s. The programme also pioneered the use of "regional correspondents," usually print or radio journalists, who would regularly advise the station about stories in their part of Ontario. This allowed field producers and a Global crew to target key stories of the day. "This is the main reason that much of Global's ex-urban coverage has been so effective", Trueman wrote in 1979.

During the 1980s, Global greatly expanded its news operation, with a 90-minute block of news starting at 5:30 p.m., as well as newscasts at noon and 11:00 p.m. By the end of the 1980s, the noon newscast was simply titled News at Noon, the 5:30 newscast was called First News, the 6:00 newscast was called The Six O'Clock Report, and the 11:00 newscast was titled The World Tonight. Trueman left CIII in 1988. Other anchors on the station over the years have included Mike Anscombe, Beverly Thomson, John Dawe, Jane Gilbert, Peter Kent, Loretta Sullivan, Bob McAdorey, Thalia Assuras and Anne-Marie Mediwake.

Since 1994, CIII also produces First National, which is anchored by Dawna Friesen and airs at 6:30 p.m. weeknights.

In keeping with the avoidance of regional branding noted above, CIII, uses the "Global News" branding, as opposed to a regional name such as "Global Ontario", as its main news brand.

### Newscast times

Weekdays:

* 6am - 9am: Global News Morning with Antony Robart and Rosey Edeh
* 12pm - 1pm: Global News at Noon with Antony Robart and Rosey Edeh
* 5:30pm - 6:30pm: Global News at 5:30 with Leslie Roberts and Anne-Marie Mediwake
* 6:30pm - 7pm: First National with Dawna Freisen
* 11pm - 11:30pm: Global News at 11 with Carolyn Mackenzie
* 11:30pm - 12:05am: Sportsline with Rob Leth

Saturdays:

* 6pm - 6:30pm: Global News at 6 with Alan Carter and Farah Nasser
* 11pm - 11:30pm: Global News at 11 with Farah Nasser

Sundays:

* 6pm - 6:30pm: Global News at 6 with Alan Carter and Farah Nasser
* 11pm - 11:30pm: Global News at 11 with Farah Nasser
* 11:30pm - 12:05am: Sportsline with Anthony Bruno

## Transmitters

A series of rebroadcast transmitters relay the CIII signal to much of Ontario. Most of these use the CIII base callsign followed by a number to denote their status as rebroadcasters, except in Sudbury and North Bay where the CFGC callsign is assigned. The most likely explanation for using CFGC is that the close resemblance between the number 1 and the letter I would make CIII-TV-11 an undesirable call sign for Sudbury, while North Bay could not use CIII-TV-2 as that call sign is already in use in Bancroft.

These six transmitters formed the original 1974 service:

* CKGN-TV Channel 6 from Paris (serving Hamilton, Brantford and Kitchener-Waterloo)
* CKGN-TV-1 Channel 22 from Cottam (near Windsor; also serving Detroit, Michigan)
* CKGN-TV-2 Channel 2 from Bancroft (serving Belleville)
* CKGN-TV-6 Channel 6 from Gatineau, Quebec (Camp Fortune site, near Ottawa)
* CKGN-TV-22 Channel 22 from Uxbridge (near Toronto)
* CKGN-TV-29 Channel 29 from Oil Springs (near Sarnia)

Original plans called for a seventh transmitter, CKGN-TV-36 from Maxville, near Cornwall. It would have primarily served Hawkesbury, but would have also provided a fairly strong grade B signal to Montreal. However, the CRTC rejected the application to operate that rebroadcaster.

The Cottam transmitter frequently went blank during the airing of imported prime-time American series; Windsor is considered to be part of the Detroit market for purposes of programming rights. This also affected CBC's station in Windsor, CBET, which frequently had to air alternative programs (for more information on this, see Media in Windsor, Ontario and Media in Detroit). This transmitter was silent for several years following a transmitter fire in the late 1970s.

In 1986, the CRTC approved the relocation of the Windsor-area transmitter from Cottam to Stevenson. Some time after this, the CIII-TV-22 call letters from the now-defunct Uxbridge transmitter were reassigned to the Stevenson transmitter. The transmitter is located southwest of Wheatley, between Wheatley and Leamington, but its signal is aimed northeast (towards Chatham–Kent), and barely reaches Windsor and Detroit – presumably to protect the Detroit stations. In the early 1990s, additional transmitters were added to expand Global's footprint in Ontario.

CIII-TV-22 (the transmitter in Uxbridge) was Canada's most powerful UHF transmitter, operating at the maximum allowable power of 5 MW. The Uxbridge transmitter ceased operations in 1988, replaced by CIII-TV-41, broadcasting from the CN Tower in Toronto. For all intents and purposes, given that the station has always been based in Toronto, this was CIII's main transmitter and Global's flagship even before the station officially moved its licence to Toronto in 2009. This was the case with the Uxbridge transmitter as well. Starting in 2008, CIII began sending its signal to the Toronto transmitter first, since the Paris transmitter did not yet have digital capability.

Other transmitters were gradually introduced, including (launch dates in parenthesis):

* CIII-TV-7 Channel 7 from Midland (November 1987, serving Barrie)
* CIII-TV-4 Channel 4 from Owen Sound (June 1988)
* CIII-TV-27 Channel 27 from Peterborough (October 1988)
* CFGC-TV Channel 11 from Sudbury (December 1992)
* CFGC-TV-2 Channel 2 from North Bay (December 1992)
* CIII-TV-13 Channel 13 from Timmins (December 1992)
* CIII-TV-12 Channel 12 from Sault Ste. Marie (December 1992)
* CIII-TV-55 Channel 55 from Fort Erie (early 1993, serving Niagara Falls and the southern Niagara Region; signal also reaches Buffalo, New York)

Initial attempts to cover Peterborough and Kingston from the Bancroft transmitter had yielded poor to marginal results; this signal has since been largely supplanted (for Peterborough only) by the more-powerful CIII-TV-27.

CIII-TV-41, along with CHCH in Hamilton and CHAN-TV in Vancouver began over-the-air high-definition broadcasts in 2008.

## Digital television

Following the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, digital television receivers in areas converted to digital will display the local transmitter's virtual channel (or PSIP) as "x.1", with "x" being the station's analog channel number.

**Digital channels**

 x.2

### Analogue-to-digital conversion

CIII-TV-41 in Toronto began broadcasting its digital signal in July 2009. The station's analogue signal, over UHF channel 41, was shut down on August 31, 2011, the official date in which Canadian television stations in CRTC-designated mandatory markets transitioned from analogue to digital broadcasts. CIII's digital signal was relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 65, as its original digital channel was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to UHF channel 41.

Global also transitioned CIII-TV in Paris, CIII-TV-6 in Ottawa and CIII-TV-7 in Midland (serving Barrie) to digital on August 31, 2011. CIII-TV-22 in Stevenson (serving Windsor and Chatham) converted to digital on August 8, 2011. The transmitter operates at a reduced power and its coverage area has been reduced. CIII-TV-55 in Fort Erie vacated its channel frequency on August 31, 2011, as Global decided to shut down that transmitter. Coverage to the areas in Canada served by the Fort Erie transmitter are provided by CIII-DT-41. Global plans on transitioning its remaining transmitters to digital by 2016, though all of CIII-DT's transmitters except for its Bancroft transmitter are to be converted to digital by February 2013.

Shortly after the 2011 digital transition, an additional digital subchannel (41.2) was launched, carrying a standard definition feed of CIII-DT, which fully duplicates the existing programming on 41.1. However (unlike other Toronto-area stations) this SD feed is not simply a letterboxed or cropped version of the HD feed, instead having different placement for promotional graphics and a separate on-screen bug (without an "HD" annotation). It is therefore possible that the SD feed needs to be broadcast over-the-air in order to continue carriage of this dedicated feed on cable and satellite providers (however, it also serves as a benefit to some over-the-air viewers with 4:3 television sets and digital converters, insofar as it allows those viewers to avoid older 4:3 programs appearing both letterboxed *and* pillarboxed).