CKXT-DT (PatrZDZ's vision)

**CKXT-DT** is a broadcast television station based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that broadcasts to much of southern and eastern Ontario. It is owned owned by Groupe TVA and Sun Media, both divisions of Quebecor Media. The station transmits on channel 52 in Toronto.

CKXT began broadcasting on September 19, 2003, owned and operated by Craig Media as a general-interest independent station branded Toronto 1. Following the station's sale to Quebecor, it was renamed Sun TV on August 29, 2005.

## History

### Toronto 1: licensing and launch

Craig Media was awarded a licence for Toronto 1 (originally stylized as "Toronto One") by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on April 8, 2002 in a controversial split decision regarding five competing applications for new Toronto-area TV stations. Torstar, which proposed a "Hometown Television" format with a main station in Toronto and repeaters in Hamilton and Kitchener, was widely deemed the frontrunner for the licence. However, its proposed schedule, with minimum 85% Canadian content consisting primarily of local and regional programming and no U.S. simulcasts, was found to be unviable by most commissioners. Several existing broadcasters were opposed to any new broadcasters being licensed in the Toronto area because of the unstable economic climate. Alliance Atlantis and Canwest were also unsuccessful applicants. At the same time Rogers applied for and received a licence for a second Toronto multicultural station, OMNI.2, in a much less controversial decision.

The CKXT license also marked the first time that Craig Media had been granted a licence to compete directly with a station owned by CHUM Limited, which meant that CHUM lost sales revenues from the broadcast rights it had contracted to Craig's A-Channel stations. CHUM retaliated by applying for broadcast licences in Calgary and Edmonton, two markets it had previously avoided so as not to compete directly with Craig. The CRTC denied CHUM's applications.

CKXT went to air on September 19, 2003 as the first new general-interest television station in Toronto in 30 years.

### Sale to Quebecor Media and relaunch as SUN TV

CHUM sold CKXT to Quebecor Media (QMI), the media unit of Montreal-based communications conglomerate Quebecor. The deal was completed on December 2, 2004; Quebecor gave CHUM CA$46 million and Sun Media's 29.9% share in CP24 for CKXT. Ownership in CKXT was split, 75%/25%, between QMI's publicly traded broadcasting unit Groupe TVA and wholly owned publishing subsidiary Sun Media, which owned The Toronto Sun. The station would be re-branded as "Sun TV" on August 29, 2005.

## Programming

The station's original programs focus mainly on topics of a local nature to the Greater Toronto Area, including a fair amount of English-language ethnic programming. The flagship current affairs magazines Metro Today and Metro Tonight are broadcast every weeknight at 7 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., while the 4 and a half-hour morning show, "Metro This Morning" is broadcast every weekday at 5:30 a.m. Sun TV's schedule also includes American talk shows and movies.

## Newscast schedule

Weekdays

* 5:30am-9am: Toronto This Morning with Brittnee Blair and Rick Campanelli
* 7pm - 8pm: Toronto Today with Ben Chin
* 11:30pm - 12:30am: Toronto Tonight with Ben Chin

## Transmitters

Virtual: 45
 *CKXT-DT-2* | London
Virtual: 19
 *CKXT-DT-3* | Ottawa

## Digital television and high definition

**Digital channels**

 x.2

The same program content is duplicated on both subchannels.