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CJON-DT (channel 21), branded on-air as NTV (short for Newfoundland Television), is an independent television station in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, owned by Newfoundland Broadcasting Company Ltd. The station's studios are located on Logy Bay Road in St. John's, and its transmitter is located in the city's Shea Heights section.


History

In 1955, Newfoundland Broadcasting Company Ltd., owner of CJON radio, applied for and received a licence for the first television station in Newfoundland. Newfoundland Broadcasting was jointly owned by Geoff Stirling and Don Jamieson. The station went on the air later that year on September 6, as a
CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV, or simply CBC) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting, p ...
affiliate. It was Newfoundland and Labrador's first television station, and remains the province's only privately owned television station to this day. Stirling has contended that this was the only group willing to invest in such a station, although other sources have suggested that Stirling and Jamieson used their political connections to prevent the CBC from opening its own station in Newfoundland first. This scenario is somewhat unlikely because until 1958, the CBC was both the primary broadcast regulator in Canada and a broadcaster in its own right, the former role taken over in 1958 by the independent Board of Broadcast Governors (the forerunner of the CRTC). However, the CBC-owned CBYT in
Corner Brook Corner Brook ( 2021 population: 19,316 CA 29,762) is a city located on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Corner Brook is the fifth largest settlement in Newfoundland and Labrado ...
launched soon after, in 1959. When it began operations, CJON's first studios and offices were located at the Prince of Wales Building in Buckmaster's Circle and the transmitter on Kenmount Road. In any event, the CBC launched CBNT in 1964, and CJON became an affiliate of the new CTV network. During the mid-1970s, it was known as "NBC", for the "Newfoundland Broadcasting Company", until 1978 when WLBZ-TV, the Bangor affiliate of the U.S.-based
National Broadcasting Company The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
, became available on cable (to be replaced later by WDIV-TV from
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, then WHDH from
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and eventually WBTS-LD/ CD also from Boston). To avoid confusion, CJON was rebranded as "NTV", although as late as August 1978, the Newfoundland Herald's TV listings continued to refer to NTV as NBC, including listing the local newscasts under the title ''NBC News''. In 1972, CJON became one of the first television stations in Canada, if not ''the'' first, to broadcast around the clock every night (see "Overnight programming", below). In 1977, Stirling and Jamieson unwound their partnership, with Jamieson taking the AM radio stations, with CJON radio being renamed CJYQ. In later years, many of the AM stations were eventually sold, and in several cases shut down. Stirling kept NTV and the newly launched station
CHOZ-FM CHOZ-FM (94.7 Hertz, MHz) is a Canadian radio station based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Its main St. John's transmitter broadcasts at 94.7 Hertz, MHz, with additional transmitters located throughout the island. The station, known as ...
. 1983 saw CJON and CHOZ's operations move to their present building on Logy Bay Road, with a new transmitter on the South Side Hills.


Programming


1988 to 2002

Until the fall of 1992, CTV programming made up a clear majority of NTV's schedule, although acquired programming from
CanWest Global 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 (now called 201 Portage). It held radio, ...
and others was present. However, from 1992 on, when CTV reduced its programming to 40 hours per week, NTV suddenly became much more reliant on other broadcasters, primarily CanWest (which owned the Canadian rights to many dominant programs of the era such as ''
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'' and ''
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''), but also
Baton Broadcasting Bell Media Inc. ( French: ) is a Canadian media conglomerate that is the mass media subsidiary of BCE Inc. (also known as Bell Canada Enterprises, the owner of telecommunications company Bell Canada). Its operations include national television ...
and WIC. Instead of relying on any one group, it took what it considered the best programming from all the groups, even after the Baton/CTV merger strengthened the CTV schedule considerably. During this period, and indeed well before, NTV consistently aired hours of
prime time Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...
programming each night, a great deal of them being American imports, from 8 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. NT (11 p.m. ET), as opposed to the North American norm of three hours. In fact, in 1995–96, first-run prime time programming began at 7:30 p.m. and ran until 12:30 a.m. Although the net result was less than the mandated 50% Canadian content between 6 p.m. and midnight, this was not deemed to violate Cancon regulations as ''
CTV National News ''CTV National News'' is the flagship newscast of CTV News, the news division of the CTV Television Network, which airs at 11:00 pm local time on the CTV stations across Canada, and is produced from CTV's facilities at 9 Channel Nine Court in Sc ...
'' did not feed an 11 p.m. AT edition until 1998, although the practice was maintained without CRTC complaint until disaffiliation in 2002.


2002 to present

For almost four decades, CJON had aired the base CTV schedule essentially for free since CTV paid it for the airtime. It then bought additional CTV programming for which it sold all advertising. However, in early 2002, CTV tried to make CJON pay for the base schedule as well, with no possibility of airtime payments. It also increased the fees for additional CTV programming beyond what CJON claimed it could pay. Newfoundland Broadcasting also did not want to continue to carry CTV's national advertising during these programs. Rather than agree to these terms, CJON disaffiliated from CTV at the end of the 2001–02 season. As of fall 2002, NTV lost access to most CTV programming, but maintained rights to ''CTV National News'', '' Canada AM'', and other CTV news programming free of charge, on the condition that it continue to provide coverage of Newfoundland and Labrador events for CTV and CTV News Channel. Additionally, it purchased rights to additional CTV programming, such as ''
Desperate Housewives ''Desperate Housewives'' is an American mystery comedy-drama television series created by Marc Cherry, and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. It aired for eight seasons on ABC from October 3, 2004, until May 13, 2012, for a tota ...
'', on an individual, per-season basis (''Desperate Housewives'' aired on NTV in its first season but not afterward, and currently no CTV entertainment programming appears regularly on NTV; until 2006, some other CTV-owned properties such as the
Academy Awards The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...
and the
Juno Award The Juno Awards (stylized as JUNOS), or simply known as the Junos, are awards presented by Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to recognize outstanding achievements in Canada's mu ...
s continued to air on NTV, but all have recently been dropped, although the Juno Awards have since reappeared on NTV as of 2009). Most of NTV's entertainment programming since 2002 has been received via to a program supply agreement with the Global Television Network; for example, ''
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'', ''
Family Guy ''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series premiered on January 31, 1999, following Super Bowl XXXIII, with the rest of the first season airing from April 11, 1999. Th ...
'', and ''
The Young and the Restless ''The Young and the Restless'' (often abbreviated as ''Y&R'') is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in the fictional Genoa City (named after the real-life Genoa City, Wiscon ...
''. NTV's last public comment on the arrangement, at a CRTC hearing in 2002, was to the effect that it would expire at the end of the 2005–2006 season. However, with the addition of new Global programs to the NTV schedule during the spring and summer of 2006, all indications are that the agreement has been extended. Unlike most Canadian stations, which fill essentially all of their unsold commercial airtime with program promotions or
public service announcement A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. Oftentimes these messages feature unsettling imagery, ideas or behaviors that are des ...
s, NTV frequently uses minute-long clips of
music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...
s, usually at the end of a commercial break, in addition to its promos and PSAs. Due to licensing issues, video usage has recently been relaxed, at least during parts of the regular broadcast day, with the addition of high-rotation news and weather updates of up to two minutes duration. However, music videos remain common during the overnight hours.


Local programming

As with many local stations in North America, non-news local programming was common in the station's early days but had decreased significantly by the 1990s. Since 2002, perhaps given the recent ratings dominance of CTV over Global (NTV's chief programming supplier), NTV has attempted to distinguish itself further through additional local programming, mainly from independent local producers. It also airs repeats of programs from the NTV archives, most frequently the retrospective series ''A Little Good News'' (later renamed ''NTV.ca''), news program ''Canada in View'' (on Mondays), and speeches from
Geoff Stirling Geoffrey William Stirling (March 22, 1921 – December 21, 2013) was a Canadian-American businessman and media magnate, best known for his work in his home city of St. John's, Newfoundland. Life Stirling was born in St. John's to Edgar Stilin ...
during ''Captain Atlantis Late Night'' (on Saturdays).


Overnight programming

NTV's overnight schedule (between 1 and 6 a.m.) generally consists of ''
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ''The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'' is an American late-night talk show, late-night news satire, news and liberal political satire talk show hosted by Stephen Colbert, which premiered on September 8, 2015. Produced by Stephen Colbert, Spartin ...
'' or ''
Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...
'' followed by reruns and overflow programming unable to be accommodated in prime time. The overnight block then concludes with ''Scenes of Newfoundland'', a full half-hour or hour dedicated to scenes of the province with traditional music from local artists playing in the background. On Saturdays, the channel shows a two-hour block of freeform programming under the banner of ''Captain Atlantis Late Night''. This block usually consists of speeches and interviews involving Stirling or longtime Newfoundland Premier
Joey Smallwood Joseph Roberts Smallwood (December 24, 1900 – December 17, 1991) was a Newfoundlander and Canadian politician. He was the main force who brought the Dominion of Newfoundland into Canadian Confederation in 1949, becoming the first premier of ...
, but has also included content such as American patriotic montages, recut
Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the ...
television specials, holiday movies and specials, and miscellanea. As of 2021, ''Captain Atlantis'' (named after an ancient alien astronaut character Stirling created) airs in the early Saturday graveyard slot, and on Saturday mornings.


News operation

CJON presently broadcasts 16 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with three hours each weekday and one hour on Sundays); the station does not broadcast any news programs on Saturdays. It has frequently been promoted as "the award-winning NTV Evening Newshour", in reference to a
RTNDA Canada The Radio Television Digital News Association of Canada, or RTDNA Canada, is a Canadian membership organization of radio, television and online journalists, news directors, producers, executives and educators. It was founded in 1962, as the Cana ...
"Best Newscast – Medium Market" award from 1998 (for a newscast aired in 1997), and several other awards for individual reports received since. Overall, CBNT has won more RTNDA and AJA awards over the same period, and is the most recent area station to have won an RTNDA Best Newscast award, winning in 2009. Repackaged versions of the ''Newshour'' air at midnight and at 6 a.m. the following day. ''NTV Newsday'', a live newscast that airs weekdays at noon, frequently also relies on content from the previous night's ''Newshour''. NTV's newscasts are also seen on at least one television station in the United States—
WZRA-CD WZRA-CD (channel 48) is a low-power, Class A television station licensed to Oldsmar, Florida, United States, serving ethnic groups in the Tampa Bay area. The station carries a variety of mostly news-oriented programming from broadcasters outsi ...
(channel 48), an ethnic station in
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, has regularly carried NTV's newscasts as well as select CTV programming. In fact, NTV's website promotes the fact that NTV advertisers can reach Tampa viewers through WZRA, although the station's signal is only received well in northwestern parts of Tampa (WZRA is licensed to
Oldsmar, Florida Oldsmar is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 14,898. The Oldsmar name dates to April 12, 1916, when automobile pioneer Ransom E. Olds purchased of land north of Tampa Bay to e ...
, a northwestern suburb of Tampa).


Technical information


Subchannels

In a rarity for a Canadian television station, CJON's signal is
multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource— ...
:


Analog-to-digital conversion

In May 2011, CJON announced plans to broadcast in digital and in high definition. The analog transmitter serving the St. John's viewing area was shut off on the morning of July 11, 2011, in order to facilitate installation of the new digital HD transmitter. CJON began transmitting its digital signal on August 3, 2011, broadcasting on
UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...
channel 21. CJON has opted to use channel 21, its actual digital channel, as its
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 as digits on a receiver's ...
, instead of channel 6, its former analog channel.


Retransmitters

The station once operated a network of retransmitters across the province. These transmitters were all analog and never converted to digital. Beginning in the 1990s, transmitters in smaller communities were shut down or spun off to community-based groups. More transmitters were shut down from 2006 to 2013. The station's transmitters in
Swift Current Swift Current is the sixth-largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It is situated along the Trans-Canada Highway west of Moose Jaw, and east of Medicine Hat, Alberta. As of 2024, Swift Current has an estimated population of ...
(CJSC-TV channel 10), Glenwood (CHSG-TV channel 7), and St. Alban's (CJST-TV channel 13) were shut down as of December 31, 2006; transmitters in Bay Bulls (CJON-TV-4 channel 10) and
Lawn A lawn () is an area of soil-covered land planted with Poaceae, grasses and other durable plants such as clover lawn, clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawn mower (or sometimes grazing animals) and used for aesthetic an ...
(CJLN-TV channel 10) were shut down as of November 2011. On November 30, 2012, transmitters at
Red Rocks Red Rocks Amphitheatre (also known colloquially as simply Red Rocks) is an open-air amphitheater in the western United States near Morrison, Colorado, approximately southwest of Denver. It is owned and operated by the city of Denver. In addi ...
(CJRR-TV channel 11) and Stephenville (CJSV-TV channel 4) were shut down; the station cited the age of the towers and the costs of the upkeep. The station also announced that their transmitter network would eventually close down in the coming years, due to the high cost of upkeep. Deleted concurrently with CJRR and CJSV was the transmitter at
Grand Bank Grand Bank or 'Grand Banc' as the first French settlers pronounced it, is a small rural town in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, with a population of 2,580. It is located on the southern tip or "toe" of the Burin Peninsula (al ...
(CJOX-TV-1 channel 2), which left the air in September 2012 following the failure of its transmitter; NTV also chose to close CJOX-1 instead of repairing it. On July 31, 2013, the remaining over-the-air retransmitters of NTV in Corner Brook, Deer Lake, Norris Arm, Bonavista, Clarenville, Argentia, and Marystown were discontinued. Coupled with the closure of the CBC's analog repeater network in 2012, the St. John's area is the only part of the province that does not need a cable or satellite subscription for "over-the-air" TV. However, few Newfoundlanders lost access to NTV due to the high penetration of cable and satellite in the province.


Internet

NTV streams all of its local newscasts live through its website, with no geographic restrictions. The live Internet feed previously carried some of the American syndicated programs; these were dropped in September 2018. It has never carried network programming on the online feed. During times when it is not carrying local news, the NTV online feed simulcasts sister station
CHOZ-FM CHOZ-FM (94.7 Hertz, MHz) is a Canadian radio station based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Its main St. John's transmitter broadcasts at 94.7 Hertz, MHz, with additional transmitters located throughout the island. The station, known as ...
, accompanied by
webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in Videotelephony, video telephony, live streaming and social media, and Closed-circuit television, security. Webcams can b ...
shots overlooking St. John's. In 2022, CJON launched the NTV+ app, which carries programming from NTV as well as CHOZ-FM.


See also

* Captain Canada (comics) *''
Waiting for Fidel ''Waiting for Fidel'' is a Canadian documentary by Michael Rubbo and starring director Rubbo, former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador Joey Smallwood and Newfoundland media mogul Geoff Stirling. It depicts Rubbo, Smallwood, and Stirling's unsuc ...
''


References

* ''CTV: The Television Wars'', Susan Gittins, Toronto: Stoddart Publishing, 1999
Small, Lennon, the gods and ME
Susan Bourette, ''Report on Business Magazine'', December 2004
nf.general Archives
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newsgroup where NTV preemptions have been frequently discussed '
Click here
for listings specific to NTV)''
CJON-DT
at The History of Canadian Broadcasting by the
Canadian Communications Foundation The Canadian Communications Foundation (CCF) was a Canadian nonprofit organization which documented the history of broadcasting in Canada, particularly radio and television networks, programs and broadcasters. The organization was established in ...

Transcript of CRTC public hearing, December 11, 2002


External links

*
CJON-DT
at The History of Canadian Broadcasting by the
Canadian Communications Foundation The Canadian Communications Foundation (CCF) was a Canadian nonprofit organization which documented the history of broadcasting in Canada, particularly radio and television networks, programs and broadcasters. The organization was established in ...
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cjon-Dt 1955 establishments in Newfoundland and Labrador JON-DT Television channels and stations established in 1955 JON-DT