Branding CITL
Newcap Television Affiliations CTV First air date July 28, 1976 | Translators see below Owner Newcap Radio | |
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Channels Digital: 4 (VHF)
Virtual: 4.1 (PSIP) | ||
CITL-DT is a privately owned television station serving as an affiliate of CTV in the city of Lloydminster, located on the border of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. It broadcasts a digital signal on VHF channel 4 from a transmitter located near Highway 17 and Township Road 512, near the Saskatchewan provincial line.
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Owned by Newcap Radio, it is sister to Global affiliate CKSA-DT and both stations share studios located on 50 Street and 51 Avenue on the Alberta side of Lloydminster. On Shaw Direct, the channel is available in high definition on channel 020 (Classic) or 520 (Advanced). This station can also be seen on Shaw Cable channel 3.
History
The station first signed on the air on July 28, 1976, and has been a CTV affiliate since its sign-on. CITL, along with their sister station CKSA, were acquired by Newcap Broadcasting in 2005 from their former owner, Midwest Television.
Prior to the August 31, 2011 digital transition, CITL had rebroadcast transmitters in Wainwright, Provost, Bonnyville, Meadow Lake and Alcot Trail. The station's main transmitter was required to participate in the digital transition, but Newcap also decided to shut its other transmitters, other than Alcot Lake's, on the same date, though there was no requirement to shut down or convert any of these other transmitters to digital.
The station had attempted to add a rebroadcaster in Fort McMurray in 2006, but this was subsequently withdrawn. The application had been surprising since a CTV-owned station, CFRN-TV, had already served the area on cable with some separate news programming and commercials since 1990 from CFRN's repeater in Ashmont.
Programming
As of 2013, CITL clears the vast majority of the CTV schedule, and is currently the last CTV station in Western Canada to air network programming (formerly Canada AM; currently Your Morning) in the 6–9 a.m. timeslot (with all CTV O&Os between Vancouver and Winnipeg airing local CTV Morning Live programs instead). The station carries the entirety of CTV's primetime lineup, with the exception of stripped broadcasts of etalk and/or repeats of The Big Bang Theory on certain nights which are replaced by local programming. CITL also breaks away from the network late-night schedule at about 2:37am (after Conan) on weeknights, and earlier on weekends, to carry a longer block of paid programming.
Until the mid-to-late 2000s (decade), CITL also carried some Global programming alongside CTV shows; however, this was discontinued at some point after Global Edmonton was made available on basic cable in Lloydminster. Nonetheless the station sometimes carries various Canadian-made programs from the library of Global's parent company Shaw Media, though this is generally restricted to older programming (or at least older seasons) not currently airing on the Global network schedule. Additionally, CITL pre-empts CTV's The View in favor of 100 Huntley Street, a brokered religious program which is also commonly aired by Global stations, as well as the weekend's network repeats of the previous night's late edition of TSN's SportsCentre for Eat Street and Infomercials.
CITL's newscasts air at 12:00 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. weekdays, and 6 p.m. on weekends. The station produces two other local programs each week:
Former Transmitters
Until August 31, 2011, CITL-DT also operated the first 4 transmitters listed below. According to Industry Canada's TV database, as of August 2012, the station no longer has a broadcast license for the last transmitter noted. Therefore, the station no longer has any rebroadcasting transmitters.