Omni Television

History

Toronto's CFMT launched in 1979 as Canada's first free, over-the-air multilingual/multicultural television station, owned by Multilingual Television (Toronto) Ltd. As its initial format was 100% ethnic, the station experienced financial difficulties, and was on the verge of bankruptcy when Rogers stepped in and purchased it in 1986. Rogers then attempted to launch a similar multicultural station in Vancouver in 1996, 1999 and 2002, but all three attempts were rejected by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). It was, however, given a second multicultural licence in Toronto to provide room for additional multicultural programing, and launched CJMT as a sister station to CFMT in fall 2002. It was at this point that the "OMNI Television" brand was introduced, with CFMT and CJMT branded as "OMNI.1" and "OMNI.2" respectively.

The Omni brand was expanded in 2005, when Rogers acquired two religious TV stations, CHNU in the Vancouver market and CIIT in Winnipeg, from Trinity Television. CHNU was rebranded from "NOWTV" to "OMNI.10" in September 2005, while CIIT went on air as "OMNI.11" on February 6, 2006.

2007 realignment

Several proposed changes to the Omni system were announced, either by Rogers or by the CRTC, during a one-month span from June to July 2007. First, on June 8, the CRTC granted Rogers licenses to operate new multicultural stations in Calgary and Edmonton, beating out a competing proposal from Multivan Broadcast Corporation (which won the bid for the Vancouver multicultural license in 2002 against Rogers and launched CHNM-TV).

On June 28, Rogers made public its offer to sell the religious-licensed Omni stations in Winnipeg and Vancouver as part of its contemporaneous purchase of Citytv (which the CRTC ordered CTVglobemedia to sell them off as part of the CHUM Limited takeover deal). Rogers indicated, however, that it viewed retaining the multilingual licences in Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton (effectively creating twinsticks in those three markets) as compatible with CRTC policy, since they are licensed to serve a different programming niche than the general interest Citytv stations.

On July 7, Rogers announced an agreement to purchase the aforementioned CHNM, finally securing a true multicultural television licence in Vancouver. The fact that Rogers had acquired the Calgary and Edmonton multicultural licences, beating out Multivan's competing applications, was cited as a major reason for the sale.

On September 28, the CRTC approved Rogers' takeover of the Citytv stations, giving the company one year to divest itself of the religious Omni stations. A tentative deal to sell the stations to S-VOX, owner of VisionTV, was announced on November 6. On March 31, 2008, the CRTC approved both Rogers' acquisition of CHNM and its sale of CIIT and CHNU to S-VOX. CHNU was rebranded as "CHNU 10" on October 31, 2007, a year before the Omni brand was transferred to CHNM. CIIT was rebranded "CIIT11" in July 2008, after S-VOX took control of the station. Both stations rebranded as Joytv on September 1, 2008; CHNM rebranded as "Omni BC" on the same date. The two new stations in Calgary and Edmonton launched on September 15, 2008 under the call letters CJCO and CJEO.

Recent developments

Rogers announced an agreement to acquire the one Canadian multicultural television station it did not already own, CJNT-DT Montreal on May 3, 2012, from Channel Zero, after having passed on the opportunity when the station was previously put up for sale in 2009 by Canwest during its financial difficulties. While intending to relaunch it as a Citytv station, Rogers did not rule out the possibility of requesting that CJNT be re-licensed as an English-language station, but in the meantime CJNT aired Omni programs (including Omni News) to fulfill much of its ethnic programming requirements after it became affiliated with Citytv prior to the sale. As part of the sale, Rogers requested that the CRTC convert CJNT to an English-language station, on the condition that both Channel Zero and Rogers provide services and resources to CFHD-DT, a newly proposed, locally owned multicultural station. Both were approved by the CRTC on December 20, 2012.

In recent years, the Omni stations have struggled financially; Rogers Media president Keith Pelley explained that between 2011 and 2014, advertising revenue had fallen from $80 million to $35 million. On May 30, 2013, Rogers announced the shutdown of production facilities at CJCO and CJEO, ending the production of local programming and news content from the Omni Alberta stations, and as a result, the discontinuation of the South Asian newscasts. On May 7, 2015, Rogers announced further cuts affecting Omni, including the re-structuring of the Omni News programs, the cancellation of V-Mix and Bollywood Boulevard, and the elimination of redundancy in technical staff between the Omni and City stations.

Programming

All Rogers-owned Omni stations are licensed to air programming in no less than 20 languages to communities encompassing at least 20 cultures—ethnic programming comprises 60% of the Omni stations' schedules. The Toronto-based Omnis are differently licensed with respect to the languages and communities they serve: CFMT airs programming for European and Caribbean language communities, while CJMT airs programming for the Pan-Asian and Pan-African audiences.

Omni stations also once aired a small amount of English-language entertainment programming aimed at mainstream audiences during part of their weekday lineups; in the past, these have included syndicated sitcoms, talk shows, and game shows. In essence, these English-language programs served to attract advertising revenue, which could then be used to finance the multicultural programs. As of the 2015-16 television season, all of these programs have been dropped in favor of additional multicultural shows and documentary programs. The Omni stations do not normally air primetime programming simulcast from U.S. networks, but may do so in the event of scheduling conflicts with sister network City, allowing Rogers to maintain their simsub rights in its duopoly markets. Omni regularly simulcaste the CBS late-night talk shows Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show under hosts Tom Snyder and Craig Ferguson until their conclusions. When hosted by Craig Kilborn, and for a brief period under Ferguson, The Late Late Show aired on Global, while the current incarnations of the programs with Stephen Colbert and James Corden air on Global and CTV respectively.

While under Rogers ownership, CHNU and CIIT aired many of the same types of programs as CFMT and CJMT, despite the difference in the nature of service of multicultural and religious stations. CHNU and CIIT had previously aired many of the same types of syndicated sitcoms and multicultural programs shown regularly on the Omni stations in Toronto, and the Toronto stations carried some religious teaching programs. The common brand allowed cost savings for promotions and for the acquisition of the general-entertainment programs that all of the Omni stations had used to generate most of their revenues. However, due in particular to Vancouver multicultural station CHNM (while under Multivan ownership) and Toronto religious station CITS, which both opposed Rogers's acquisition of Trinity's religious stations, the Omni stations' core formats remained intact.

Sports

Omni Television stations have occasionally aired sporting events in minority languages, and in English as an overflow for City or Sportsnet. Prior to their move to City and the eventual acquisition of late games by CTV, the Omni stations aired late-afternoon NFL games for a period, and in the 2014 season, simulcast selected Thursday Night Football games with CBS and Sportsnet. During the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Omni stations broadcast coverage of the games in minority languages, and on June 27, 2013, Omni.2 in Toronto broadcast Mandarin-language coverage of a Toronto Blue Jays Major League Baseball game started by Taiwanese player Chien-Ming Wang, marking the first ever Canadian MLB broadcast in the language.

Rogers acquired national media rights to the National Hockey League in November 2013. Beginning in the 2014-15 NHL season, the Omni stations added Hockey Night in Canada: Punjabi Edition, which broadcasts a doubleheader of NHL games on Saturday nights and selected playoff games with commentary in Punjabi. The Punjabi broadcasts are a continuation of CBC's past digital coverage of games in the language.

News

Omni produced a national newscast in Punjabi. In addition, the Omni stations in Toronto and Vancouver produce regional newscasts in the following languages five days a week:

Omni Alberta (CJCO/CJEO) also produced newscasts in Cantonese, Mandarin and English (for the South Asian edition) from its launch in 2008 until 2011.

The programs featured coverage of Canadian news stories in the language, along with stories from foreign broadcasters in countries in which the language is natively spoken (or the Indian subcontinent, in the case of the Punjabi edition).

On May 7, 2015, Rogers announced a restructuring of Omni News programs as part of cutbacks that led to the loss of 110 jobs across the company. The existing newscasts would by replaced by new public affairs-oriented programs produced in Cantonese, Mandarin and Punjabi. The new programs feature in-depth discussion of local issues, and do not feature original news reporting. Colette Watson, Rogers' vice president of television, explained that the decision to drop the newscasts was financially motivated; the newscasts only brought in $3.9 million in advertising revenue per-year, but had production expenses of $9 million.

Rogers' decision to drop ethnic newscasts resulted in criticism by Julian Fantino, Member of Parliament for Vaughan, who described the loss of Italian-language news coverage to be "devastating"; Vaughan has a notably large population of Italians, Following an unsatisfactory response by the company, Fantino called upon Rogers representatives to appear before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

High definition

In the fall of 2004, Omni launched high definition simulcasts of both Toronto stations, CFMT and CJMT. However, at the time both stations were only available through digital cable. In the summer of 2008, both stations began broadcasting digitally over-the-air. In December 2009, CHNM began broadcasting an over-the-air digital signal and broadcasts in standard definition.

Omni Regional

On June 14, 2016, Rogers announced that it had submitted an application to the CRTC for a new, national specialty service known as Omni Regional. The service would consist of four feeds; "Pacific", "Prairies", "East", and "Quebec". The first three would carry programming from Omni's broadcast television stations in these regions and additional programming. The Quebec feed will distribute programming from CFHD in Montreal. Rogers is pursuing 9(1)(h) must-carry status for the service, which would require it to be offered by all Canadian pay television providers. Colette Watson, Rogers' vice president of television, stated that Omni Television was "not sustainable in its current state"; the company stated that must-carry status for the Omni Regional channels would result in an additional $14 million in annual revenue from carriage fees, which it planned to mostly invest into the production of daily half-hour newscasts in the Cantonese, Italian, Mandarin, and Punjabi languages—programming that had been cancelled in 2015 in the previous round of cuts. Rogers also pledged to increase its investments in original, Canadian programming for the Omni outlets.