Slogan News for the North Translators see below Owner Bell Media | Channels Analog: 3 (VHF) Affiliations CTV | |
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Branding CTV Northern Ontario
CTV News Northern Ontario (newscasts) | ||
CITO-TV is the CTV owned-and-operated television station in Timmins, Ontario, Canada. It broadcasts an analogue signal on VHF channel 3 from a transmitter near Highway 101 (just west of Connaught Road) in Timmins with rebroadcasters in Kapuskasing (channel 10), Kirkland Lake (channel 11, also serving Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec), Hearst (channel 4) and Chapleau (channel 9).
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Owned by Bell Media, it is part of the network's CTV Northern Ontario sub-system and its studios are located on Pine Street North (near Hendry Avenue) in Timmins. This station can also be seen on EastLink TV channel 4. Effective November 29, 2012, Bell TV customers will also be able to view CITO-TV on channel 589.
History
CITO was established in 1971 as CKSO-TV-2, originally rebroadcasting CKSO in Sudbury. Unlike CKSO and CKNY in North Bay, which were established in the 1950s as CBC affiliates and then reaffiliated with CTV in 1971 when J. Conrad Lavigne established new CBC stations in those markets, in Timmins Lavigne's existing station CFCL retained its CBC affiliation and CTV service was provided by a rebroadcast transmitter of CKSO.
Until 1980, CKSO-2 and CFCL aggressively competed with each other for advertising dollars, leaving both in a precarious financial position due to the Timmins market's relatively small size. In 1980, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved the merger of Cambrian Broadcasting and Lavigne's Mid-Canada Communications into the MCTV twinstick. The station's callsign changed to CITO-TV at that time and it began operating as a standalone station.
In 1990, the stations were acquired by Baton Broadcasting. Baton subsequently became the sole corporate owner of CTV, and sold CFCL to the CBC in 2002.
Transmitters
These and many other CTV rebroadcasters nationwide were to shut down on or before August 31, 2009, as part of a political dispute with Canadian authorities on paid fee-for-carriage requirements for cable television operators. A subsequent change in ownership assigned full control of CTVglobemedia to Bell Media; as of 2011, these transmitters remain in normal licensed broadcast operation.
On February 11, 2016, Bell Media applied for its regular license renewals, which included applications to delete a long list of transmitters, including CITO-TV-3 and CICO-TV-4. Bell Media's rationale for deleting these analogue repeaters is below:
"We are electing to delete these analogue transmitters from the main licence with which they are associated. These analogue transmitters generate no incremental revenue, attract little to no viewership given the growth of BDU or DTH subscriptions and are costly to maintain, repair or replace. In addition, none of the highlighted transmitters offer any programming that differs from the main channels. The Commission has determined that broadcasters may elect to shut down transmitters but will lose certain regulatory privileges (distribution on the basic service, the ability to request simultaneous substitution) as noted in Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2015-24, Over-the-air transmission of television signals and local programming. We are fully aware of the loss of these regulatory privileges as a result of any transmitter shutdown."
At the same time, Bell Media applied to conver the licenses of CTV2 Atlantic (formerly ASN) and CTV2 Alberta (formerly ACCESS) from satellite-to-cable undertakings into television stations without transmitters (similar to cable-only network affiliates in the United States), and to reduce the level of educational content on CTV2 Alberta.