CJEO-DT

On February 12th, the Commission heard several applications for licences to serve those markets, including proposals from Rogers Broadcasting Limited and MVBC Holdings Limited; each proposed to offer an over-the-air multi-lingual ethnic program service.

On September 15th, CJEO-TV Edmonton went on the air on channel 56, with an average effective radiated power of 340,000 watts. It was a condition of licence that the station would devote a minimum of 60% of its programming each month to the broadcasting of ethnic programming, with 80% of its programming between 8 and 10pm being devoted to Canadian programs. The station was branded as one of Rogers’ OMNI stations.

On August 19 the CRTC renewed CJEO-TV’s (OMNI Alberta) licence until August 31, 2015. The Commission approves the request by Rogers Broadcasting Limited to harmonize its requirement for the provision of Canadian programming across all of its OMNI stations. The Commission denies Rogers’ proposal to harmonize across all of its OMNI stations the requirement to broadcast ethnic programming during “peak” time and its request to remove the conditions of licence relating to the overlap of programming between OMNI and Citytv stations. The Commission approves Rogers’ request to harmonize across all of its OMNI stations the requirement to provide programming to a minimum of 20 distinct ethnic groups in a minimum of 20 distinct languages monthly and approves an amended requirement that no more than 16% of the programming be in any one foreign language during each broadcast month. Among the conditions of licence: The licensee shall devote to the broadcast of ethnic programs: a) not less than 60% of the total number of hours broadcast monthly between 6 a.m. and midnight; and b) not less than 50% of the total number of hours broadcast monthly between 6 p.m. and midnight.

Paula Davies, general manager at Citytv Calgary and Richard Hiron, GM at Citytv Edmonton, were no longer with the company. Paul Williams took on the administrative functions in addition to his sales role at Citytv Calgary, while David Humen did the same thing at Citytv Edmonton (in addition to his sales functions). The Calgary operations of the master control hub for Citytv and OMNI Television in the west would move to Toronto. Those operations had reported to Calgary GM Paula Davies but would now be handled by Virginia Gibberd, VP of Operations in Toronto. Gibberd, responsible for network operations and engineering, also had operational responsibilities for Citytv, OMNI Television, Specialty Television and Sportsnet.

Jack Keech was now the Operations Manager (Production) for Citytv/OMNI Edmonton. Operations Manager (Production) for Citytv/OMNI Calgary was added to his duties in Edmonton.

Gwendolyn Green-Earl succeeded Rob Twarynski as supervisor, media operations at the City and OMNI stations in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. She began her broadcast career at CKX-TV (then A Channel) Brandon in 2000, transferring to Calgary (within Craig Broadcasting) in 2004.

At the start of the year, Citytv and Omni tv were in the process of moving in with the Rogers radio stations (CKER and CHDI) at 5915 Gateway Blvd. The lease at 10212 Jasper Avenue (where the TV stations were located) was up and it was decided to put the radio and TV stations under one roof.