CFYK-DT (channel 8) is a

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- ...

station in

Yellowknife Yellowknife (; Dogrib: ) is the capital, largest community, and only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the ...

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

, Canada. It is the

flagship station In broadcasting, a flagship (also known as a flagship station or key station) is the broadcast station which originates a television network, or a particular radio or television program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyalt ...

of the

CBC North CBC North ( iu, ᓰᐲᓰ ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᒥ, lit=CBC Northwest, translit=, SiiPiiSii Ukiuqtaqtumi; cr, ᓰᐲᓰ ᒌᐌᑎᓅᑖᐦᒡ, label=cr, SiiPiiSii Chiiwetinuutaahch; french: Radio-Canada Nord) is the Canadian Broadcasting Corpora ...

television service.

History

The station signed on in 1967 as the first television station in northern Canada, and the first station to be part of the CBC's Frontier Coverage Package; satellite delivery of

colour television Color television or Colour television is a television transmission technology that includes color information for the picture, so the video image can be displayed in color on the television set. It improves on the monochrome or black-and-white t ...

began in 1973. Prior to 2011, the station was licensed by the

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) as a "radiocommunication distribution undertaking," meaning that for regulatory purposes it was not a true television station, but merely a transmitter that redistributed CBC North from satellite. The CRTC formally relicensed it as a full television station in February 2011. CFYK-TV switched to digital broadcasting,

flash cut A flash cut, also called a flash cutover, is an immediate change in a complex system, with no phase-in period. In the United States, some telephone area codes were split or overlaid immediately, rather than being phased in with a permissive d ...

ting on VHF 8 (originally VHF 7) with a

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 A ...

of 8.1 on August 1, 2012. However, the CBC was not obligated to convert or close down this station, as no part of the Northwest Territories is designated as a mandatory market for

digital conversion The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover (DSO), the analogue switch/sign-off (ASO), the digital migration, or the analogue shutdown, is the process in which older analogue television broadcasting technology is con ...

Transmitters

CFYK had 9 analogue VHF television rebroadcasters in the Northwest Territories. Additionally, CFWH-TV in

Whitehorse Whitehorse () is the capital of Yukon, and the largest city in Northern Canada. It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1426 (Historic Mile 918) on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas ...

and CFFB-TV in

Iqaluit Iqaluit ( ; , ; ) is the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, its largest community, and its only city. It was known as Frobisher Bay from 1942 to 1987, after the large bay on the coast on which the city is situated. In 1987, its t ...

, though operating as semi-satellites of CFYK with their own networks of rebroadcasters, were actually licensed as rebroadcasters of CFYK. Due to federal funding reductions to the CBC, in April 2012, the CBC responded with substantial budget cuts, which included shutting down CBC's and Radio-Canada's remaining analogue transmitters on July 31, 2012.Speaking notes for Hubert T. Lacroix regarding measures announced in the context of the Deficit Reduction Action Plan
/ref> None of CBC or Radio-Canada's rebroadcasters were converted to digital. The only known translators in Arctic Canada that are known to still be in service are owned and operated by local community groups or local governments. However, few residents actually lost access to CBC programming due to the extremely high penetration of cable and satellite, which is all but essential for acceptable television in much of the Arctic.

References

External links

CBC North
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cfyk-Dt FYK-DT FYK-DT Television channels and stations established in 1967 Mass media in Yellowknife 1967 establishments in the Northwest Territories