CICT-DT
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

CICT-DT (channel 2) is a
television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...
in
Calgary, Alberta Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Canadian Prairies, Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,30 ...
, Canada, part of the
Global Television Network The Global Television Network (more commonly called Global, or occasionally Global TV) is a Canadian English-language terrestrial television network. It is currently Canada's second most-watched private terrestrial television network after ...
. The station is
owned and operated In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
by network parent
Corus Entertainment Corus Entertainment Inc. is a Canadian mass media company. Formed in 1999 as a spin-off from Shaw Communications, it has prominent holdings in the radio, publishing, and television industries. It is headquartered at Corus Quay in Toronto, Onta ...
, and has studios at the Calgary Television Centre on 23 Street Northeast and Barlow Trail in northeast Calgary, near the Mayland Heights neighbourhood; its transmitter is located near Old Banff Coach Road/ Highway 563 and Artists View Drive, west of the Calgary city limits. Until August 29, 2022, CICT-DT served as the
master control Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as switc ...
hub for all 15 Global owned-and-operated stations across Canada.


History

CICT-TV first signed on the air on October 8, 1954 as CHCT-TV, and was the first television station in the province of Alberta (as a result, it is also the oldest television station in the country that is part of the Global Television Network). The station was originally an affiliate of
CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952. Its French-l ...
. Its studios, offices and transmitter facility were located on a hill west of the city. The station was owned by Calgary Television Ltd., a consortium of Calgary radio stations CFCN,
CFAC :''CFAC also stands for Commander Fleet Activities Chinhae'' CFAC is an AM radio station serving Calgary, Alberta. Owned by Rogers Sports & Media, the station broadcasts a sports format branded as ''Sportsnet 960 The Fan'', co-branded with t ...
and CKXL. The "CT" in CHCT stood for "Calgary Television". During the construction of the transmitter, the , 5-ton antenna was being hoisted on the top of the tower when the cable snapped and the antenna fell all the way down the tower to imbed itself in the ground. No one was injured in the accident, and the antenna was able to be repaired, but the station's launch was delayed by 10 days. A year later, CHCT moved its studios and offices from the transmitter site on Old Banff Coach Road, to a renovated badminton club/sea cadet drill hall on 955 Rideau Road S.W. in Calgary. Notable programs that were produced at the original studio include ''Klara's Korner'', a cooking show that was in national
syndication Syndication may refer to: * Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system * Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips * Web syndication, ...
for many years; ''
Yan Can Cook ''Yan Can Cook'' is a Chinese oriented cooking show starring Chef Martin Yan that featured recipes for stir fried foods and an assortment of various other traditional Chinese meals and cooking techniques. The series first aired in Calgary, Albert ...
'', a cooking show hosted by
Martin Yan Martin Yan (; born 22 December 1948) is a Hong Kong chef and food writer. He has hosted his award-winning PBS-TV cooking show ''Yan Can Cook'' since 1982. Early years and education With ancestral roots in Taishan, Yan was born in Guangzhou, ...
which later aired for many years on
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
in the United States; ''
Stampede Wrestling Stampede Wrestling was a Canadian professional wrestling promotion based in Calgary, Alberta. For nearly 50 years, it was one of the main promotions in western Canada and the Canadian Prairies. Originally established by Stu Hart in 1948, the prom ...
'', which was produced for over 20 years, finding loyal audiences worldwide; and ''It Figures'', which originated at the station and was produced for nearly 20 years. In 1957, CKXL Ltd. sold its share in Calgary Television Ltd. to Fredrick Shaw, who had recently sold his share in CKXL-AM to Tel-Ray Ltd. The Love family, owners of CFCN, sold off its stake in 1961 when it opened its own station,
CFCN-TV CFCN-DT (channel 4) is a television station in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, part of the CTV Television Network. It is owned and operated by network parent Bell Media alongside cable-exclusive CTV 2 Alberta (based in Edmonton with sister station CFR ...
. In 1968, Tel-Ray sold its stake to
Selkirk Communications Selkirk Communications was a Canadian radio and television broadcasting company, which operated from 1959 to 1989. Evolving out of Taylor, Pearson & Carson, a local broadcaster in Vancouver founded in 1934, the company grew to own 14 radio statio ...
, part-owner of CFAC radio alongside Southam Inc. This gave Selkirk full ownership of the station, and accordingly the callsign changed to CFAC-TV. On September 1, 1975, after the CBC launched its own station in Calgary, CBRT (channel 9; prior to its sign-on, Calgary was the largest TV market in Canada without a CBC
owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
of its own), CFAC-TV disaffiliated from CBC and became an
independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...
. In 1979, the station branded itself as "2&7", the latter channel number referring to both its cable location and to sister station CFAC-TV7 in
Lethbridge Lethbridge ( ) is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. With a population of 101,482 in its 2019 Alberta municipal censuses, 2019 municipal census, Lethbridge became the fourth Alberta city to surpass 100,000 people. The nearby Canadian ...
(now CISA). For a number of years afterwards, it continued to use the old CFAC "star" logo (modelled after the logo used by then-sister station
CHCH Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River ...
in
Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...
) alongside the 2&7 logo. In 1981, the station moved to its current home, the Calgary Television Centre, a move reflecting its growth since its disaffiliation from the CBC. After obtaining the television rights to the (then-newly relocated)
Calgary Flames The Calgary Flames are a professional ice hockey team based in Calgary. The Flames compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference, and ...
NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
franchise the year before, the station purchased a seven-camera mobile unit soon after. The station has been the Flames' television partner since 1980. In the fall of 1982, the station became the first station in Calgary to begin broadcasting a 24-hour schedule. Programs seen during the overnight hours consisted of movies and reruns of ''
The Jackie Gleason Show ''The Jackie Gleason Show'' is the name of a series of American network television shows that starred Jackie Gleason, which ran from 1952 to 1970, in various forms. ''Cavalcade of Stars'' Gleason's first variety series, which aired on the DuMon ...
'', among other shows. Although it continued to nominally be an independent station, in 1988, CFAC-TV began airing some programs from the
Global Television Network The Global Television Network (more commonly called Global, or occasionally Global TV) is a Canadian English-language terrestrial television network. It is currently Canada's second most-watched private terrestrial television network after ...
. In 1989,
Maclean-Hunter Maclean-Hunter (M-H) was a Canadian communications company, which had diversification (finance), diversified holdings in radio, television, magazines, newspapers and cable television distribution. History The company began in 1887, when brothers J ...
purchased Selkirk Communications, but due to
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...
(CRTC) ownership regulations at the time (Maclean-Hunter already owned CFCN-TV), CFAC-TV was sold to
Western International Communications WIC Western International Communications Ltd. (or WIC) was a Canadian media company that operated from 1982 to 2000, with operations including broadcast and specialty television, radio, and satellite distribution via a majority interest in Can ...
(WIC). A year after WIC bought channel 2, it changed the call letters to CKKX-TV. In 1992, CKKX's news operations were expanded with the acquisitions of a satellite uplink truck and a fleet of electronic news gathering microwave trucks. On September 7, 1993, CKKX changed its callsign to CICT-TV (for "Independent Calgary Television"), and also took on the brand of "Calgary 7", referring to the station's cable channel. Throughout the 1990s, prime time programming became a mix of Global-sourced shows and those either produced or acquired by WIC itself, including the nationally oriented newscast ''
Canada Tonight ''Canada Tonight'' is a Canadian television newscast which aired on stations owned by Western International Communications (WIC) from 1993 to 2001. It was produced out of the studio of CHAN-TV (BCTV) in Burnaby, British Columbia. There were two ...
''. WIC's properties were split between
Shaw Communications Shaw Communications Inc. is a Canadian telecommunications company which provides telephone, Internet, television, and mobile services. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Shaw provides home telecommunications services primarily in Alberta and Br ...
and
Canwest Canwest Global Communications Corporation, which operated under the corporate name Canwest, was a major Canadian media conglomerate based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with its head offices at Canwest Place. It held radio, television broadcasting an ...
in 1998. This move required CRTC approval, the plans for which were filed in 1999 and approved in 2001. Canwest acquired WIC's television assets, including CICT; incidentally, Shaw later bought Canwest's assets amidst the latter company seeking creditor protection in 2009, with the properties becoming the present-day
Shaw Media Shaw Media was the television broadcasting division of Shaw Communications. Shaw Media owned the Global Television Network, which broadcasts nationally via 13 television stations, as well as 19 specialty channels including Slice (TV channel), Sli ...
(which is based in the same city). On September 1, 2001, CICT joined the Global Television Network full-time as an owned-and-operated station, along with fellow Alberta stations
CITV-TV CITV-DT (channel 13) is a television station in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, part of the Global Television Network. The station is owned and operated by network parent Corus Entertainment, and maintains studios on Allard Way Northwest in the Pl ...
in
Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
and CISA in Lethbridge. By 2001, CICT-TV began relays in
Drumheller Drumheller is a town on the Red Deer River in the badlands of Central Alberta, east-central Alberta, Canada. It is northeast of Calgary and south of Stettler, Alberta, Stettler. The Drumheller portion of the Red Deer River valley, often ref ...
(CICT-TV-1) and Banff (CICT-TV-2).


Programming

CICT airs the entire Global programming lineup, operating on the same schedule as its Edmonton sister station CITV-DT. All non-news programming and some Calgary-based newscasts are also aired on fellow sister station CISA-DT in Lethbridge.


News operation

CICT presently broadcasts 46½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 7½ hours each weekday and 4½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output out of any English-language television station in the Calgary market. On April 11, 2007, CICT-DT became the first television station in Calgary to use a helicopter for newsgathering. Named "Global 1", it provides traffic reports on the ''Morning News'' in combination with in-studio traffic segments, and is also intended to provide breaking news coverage. The helicopter is also shared with
CHQR CHQR is a radio station owned by Corus Entertainment operating in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Broadcasting at AM 770, it airs talk programming. With the exception of one show, all of CHQR's weekday programming is produced in-house. CHQR is also th ...
(770 AM) during the morning and afternoon rush hour periods. CICT became the first television station in Calgary, and the second television station in the province of Alberta, to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition on November 22, 2010; a new virtual set for the newscasts was also introduced on that date. On September 11, 2011, CICT debuted a two-hour Sunday morning newscast, running from 8–10 a.m. Mountain Time. On August 27, 2012, the station expanded its weekday morning newscast to four hours, with the addition of a half-hour at 5 a.m., the 5–6 a.m. hour of the newscast being titled the ''Early Morning News''; in addition on September 2, 2012, the station expanded its Sunday morning newscast to three hours with an additional hour at 7 a.m. The expansions of the morning newscasts were part of a benefits package that was included as a condition of the sale of the Global network to Shaw Communications.


Notable former on-air staff

*
Ashleigh Banfield Ashleigh Dennistoun Banfield (born December 29, 1967) is a Canadian-American journalist and host of ''Banfield'' on the NewsNation network. She is a former host of ''Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield'' and ''Early Start'' on CNN. Education ...
(was with
MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...
and
TruTV TruTV (stylized as truTV) is an American basic cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel primarily broadcasts comedy, docusoaps and reality shows. The channel was originally launched in 1991 as Court TV, a network that focu ...
, later weekday mid-morning anchor for
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
, now host of ''Banfield'' on
NewsNation NewsNation is an American subscription television network owned by the Nexstar Media Group, and is the company's only wholly-owned, national cable-originated television channel. The channel runs a mixture of entertainment programming (consistin ...
) *
Sandra Jansen Sandra Jansen (born c. 1963) is a Canadian politician who was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta representing the electoral district of Calgary-North West. She served as the Minister of Infrastructure between October 2017 and Apr ...
– Member of the
Legislative Assembly of Alberta The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. The Legislative Assembly currently has 87 members, elected first past the post from singl ...
for
Calgary-North West Calgary-North West is a provincial electoral district in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The district was created in 1979 and is mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. History The electoral district was created in ...
* Bruce McAllister – Member of the
Legislative Assembly of Alberta The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. The Legislative Assembly currently has 87 members, elected first past the post from singl ...
for
Chestermere-Rocky View Chestermere-Rocky View was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada, mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first-past-the-post method of voting from 2012 to 2019. History Boundary histor ...
*
Mike Toth Mike Toth (born September 27, 1963) is a Canadian sports anchor, formerly on Rogers Sportsnet's ''Sportsnet Connected'' and with the Fan 590 CJCL (590 AM, ''Sportsnet 590 The Fan'') is a Canadian sports radio station in Toronto, Ontario. Own ...
(now a freelance writer, TV and radio host, and professional speaker and broadcaster coach in Toronto) * Ed Whalen – news and sports director, news anchor and editorial; host of ''
Stampede Wrestling Stampede Wrestling was a Canadian professional wrestling promotion based in Calgary, Alberta. For nearly 50 years, it was one of the main promotions in western Canada and the Canadian Prairies. Originally established by Stu Hart in 1948, the prom ...
''; later sports anchor and
Calgary Flames The Calgary Flames are a professional ice hockey team based in Calgary. The Flames compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference, and ...
play-by-play announcer (was with CICT since its sign-on; also worked for CFAC radio and the ''
Calgary Sun The ''Calgary Sun'' is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is owned by Postmedia. First published in 1980, the tabloid-format daily replaced the long-running tabloid-size newspaper ''The Albertan'' soon after it was acq ...
''; deceased)


Technical information


Subchannel


Analogue-to-digital conversion

CICT-DT received a
construction permit Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...
for channel 41 on March 5, 2009 and began broadcasting on May 25, 2009.Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2009-119
CICT-TV Calgary – Transitional digital television On August 31, 2011, when Canadian television stations in CRTC-designated mandatory
markets Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: * Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand * Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, a ...
transitioned from analogue to digital broadcasts,Digital Television – Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA)
the station's digital signal remained on UHF channel 41. However, through the use of
PSIP The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the AT ...
, digital television receivers display CICT-DT's
virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...
as 2.1. As of July 28, 2020, due to the DTV spectrum repack happening across North America, CICT-DT has moved from UHF 41 to UHF 25. The PSIP number remains as 2.1.


Transmitters


References


External links


Global CalgaryCanadian Communications Foundation – CICT-TV History
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cict-Dt ICT-DT ICT-DT Corus Entertainment Television channels and stations established in 1954 National Hockey League over-the-air television broadcasters Calgary Cowboys 1954 establishments in Alberta