Branding City Winnipeg Affiliations City | Slogan Everywhere! | |
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City Portage la Prairie, Manitoba Channels Digital: 13 (VHF)
Virtual: 13.1 (PSIP) Owner Rogers Media, a division of Rogers Communications
(Rogers Broadcasting Limited) | ||
CHMI-DT, VHF channel 13, is a City owned-and-operated television station serving Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada that is licensed to Portage la Prairie. The station is owned by Rogers Media, a division of Rogers Communications (through its Rogers Broadcasting Limited division. CHMI's studios are located at 8 Forks Market Road (near Fort Gibraltar Trail and Waterfront Drive) in Downtown Winnipeg, and its transmitter is located adjacent to Bohn Road (near Provincial Road 245) in Cartier. This station can also be seen on Rogers Cable (corporate sister through parent company Rogers Communications) channel 139, Shaw Cable and MTS TV channel 8. On Shaw Direct, the channel is available on 384 (Classic) or 074 (Advanced), and in high definition on channel 030 (Classic) or 530 (Advanced). There is a high definition feed offered on Shaw Cable digital channel 213 and MTS TV channel 417. This station is also available on Bell TV channel 228.
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It is the only television station owned by Rogers that is not part of any twinstick ever since Joytv outlet CIIT-DT (formerly an affiliate of City sister system Omni Television) was sold to S-VOX in 2008.
History
The station was licensed by the CRTC on May 8, 1986 and owned by Craig Media. It went on the air on October 17, 1986 where it was originally branded as the Manitoba Television Network or MTN. Although it has always been a Winnipeg station for all intents and purposes, for its first decade it was not allowed to sell advertising in Winnipeg.
MTN was well known for its Prairie Pulse News (later retitled MTN Pulse News, and then MTN News), MTN Kids Club, and Prime Ticket Movies, the last of which would carry over to the A-Channel system. The station's initial slogan was "Very independent, very Manitoba!"
In the fall of 1999, Craig Media moved the station's production facilities to the refurbished former Canadian National Railway Power House at The Forks in Winnipeg and rebranded the station as A-Channel, joining CKEM-TV in Edmonton and CKAL-TV in Calgary – effectively uniting Craig's non-CBC affiliates under the A-Channel banner. Technical operations for the station remained in Portage la Prairie.
In 2004, Craig Media announced a deal to sell its broadcasting assets to CHUM Limited. The sale was approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on November 19, 2004, and became official on December 1. On February 3, 2005, CHUM announced that the A-Channel stations, including CHMI, would be relaunched as Citytv by that fall; the changes took effect on August 2.
On July 12, 2006, CTVglobemedia announced its takeover of CHUM Limited, pending regulatory approval. CTV originally intended to retain CHMI and the other four Citytv stations, while divesting the A-Channel stations. As of January 2007, technical operations for the station have been moved to fellow Citytv station CKAL-TV in Calgary.
On June 8, 2007, the CRTC approved the CTV takeover of CHUM, but made the deal conditional on CTV divesting itself of Citytv (including CHMI) rather than A-Channel. The CRTC was not willing to allow CTV-Citytv twinsticks On June 11, Rogers Communications announced that it would buy the Citytv stations for $375 million. The transaction was approved by the CRTC on September 28, and Rogers took control effective October 31.
In October 2012, the station began branding itself on promos and on-screen logos as "City", removing the "tv" portion from its identification.
News operation
CHMI-DT presently broadcasts 15 hours of locally produced newscasts each week, all consisting of three hours each weekday of a local version of City's local morning news program franchise Breakfast Television. On July 12, 2006, the same day as CTVglobemedia's takeover of CHUM Limited was announced, the local CityNews programs on CHMI-TV were discontinued; since then, Breakfast Television has been the only locally-produced program on the station.
In 2015, the station announced a revised local programming lineup, under which Breakfast Television replaced with a televised broadcast of sister radio station CITI-FM's morning program Wheeler in the Morning. Former BT hosts Drew Kozub and Jenna Khan will remain as contributors to Wheeler.
Analogue-to-digital conversion
On August 31, 2011, when Canadian television stations in CRTC-designated mandatory markets transitioned from analogue to digital broadcasts, CHMI-TV flash cut its digital signal into operation on VHF channel 13.