CHRO-TV (PatrZDZ's vision)

**CHRO** (channel 5), is a CTV affiliate licensed to Pembroke, Ontario, Canada, serving the capital city of Ottawa as well as Anglo-Quebecers in the neighbouring city of Gatineau, Quebec. Owned by Baton Broadcasting alongside Ottawa-based CTV affiliate CJOH-DT, channel 13 (although the two stations maintain separate operations), the station maintains studios at 315 Pembroke Street East, and its transmitter is located on TV Tower Road near Pembroke.

On cable, the station is available on Cogeco channel 6 in Pembroke, and Rogers Cable channels 6 and 595 in the Ottawa area. On satellite, it is carried on Bell Satellite TV channel 209 and Shaw Direct channel 146.

## History

The station first went on the air on August 19, 1961 as CHOV-TV, a CBC Television affiliate owned by Gordon Archibald Ottawa Valley Broadcasting, the owner of AM radio station CHOV. Workers of the station unionized and a labour dispute began. A financial crisis in 1976 led to the station going dark for six days in August of that year. Ottawa Valley sold the station to J. Conrad Lavigne in 1977. Lavigne adopted the CHRO-TV callsign, and opened a sales office for the station in Ottawa. Lavigne's company subsequently became part of the MCTV system in 1980. While most of the MCTV stations used "MCTV", rather than their call letters, as their on-air branding, CHRO continued to use its call sign, although it used the same logo and programming schedule as the other MCTV stations.

In 1986, MCTV filed an application to expand the service by disaffiliating from the CBC and adding a transmitter and broadcasting facilities in Ottawa, although the application process instead resulted in Baton Broadcasting being given a license to launch a new independent station in Ottawa. Standard Broadcasting, the owners of existing Ottawa television station CJOH-TV, responded to the potential new competition by selling CJOH to Baton, who then surrendered the new independent license. As a result, Mid-Canada submitted a revived application in 1989, but the application was withdrawn after Northern Cable, the owner of the MCTV system, underwent an ownership change to be financed by selling off its broadcasting assets.

In 1990, Baton Broadcasting acquired the MCTV stations. Because CHRO was carried by cable television companies in the Ottawa market, this was deemed an ownership conflict for Baton, which already owned Ottawa's CJOH, and would therefore have a de facto twinstick in competition with the CBC's CBOT-TV (channel 4). However, the station's carriage in Ottawa was also deemed essential to its survival, since Pembroke was too small a market to support the station on its own. Therefore, CHRO disaffiliated from the CBC, and became a CTV affiliate. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) also ordered strict controls on CHRO's programming, so that Baton could not gain unfair audience advantage in Ottawa by airing shows at different times on CHRO and CJOH.

Due to a major fire that destroyed the longtime studios of sister CTV station CJOH-TV on Merivale Road in Nepean on February 7, 2010, CHRO moved to a brand new complex located at 315 Pembroke Street East.

## Digital television

### Analogue-to-digital conversion

On August 31, 2011, when Canadian television stations in CRTC-designated mandatory markets transitioned from analogue to digital broadcasts, CHRO-TV, ceased analog transmissions and began broadcasting in digital on its digital allocation of VHF channel 7.

## News operation

CHRO-DT presently broadcasts 17 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 3 hours each weekday and an hour each on Sundays).

### Newscast schedule

Weekdays

* 12pm - 1pm: CHRO News Midday Edition with Doug Hempstead
* 5pm - 5:30pm: CHRO News Early Edition with Kate Eggins
* 6pm - 7pm: CHRO News Evening Edition with Doug Hempstead
* 11:30pm - 12:05am: CHRO News Late Edition with Kate Eggins

Saturdays:

* 6pm - 6:30pm: CHRO News Weekend Edition with Annette Goerner
* 11:30pm - 12:05am: CHRO News Weekend Edition with Annette Goerner

Sundays:

* 6pm - 6:30pm: CHRO News Weekend Edition with Annette Goerner
* 11:30pm - 12:05am: CHRO News Weekend Edition with Annette Goerner