CKAL-DT

Craig Broadcasting announced that its new TV operations in Calgary would be located in the downtown Northstar Building. It would be a high profile location. When operational, the new station planned to employ more than 130 people. 

CKAL-TV Channel 5 (Cable 8) officially launched at 8:00 p.m. on September 20. The station set up its broadcasting facilities in the former Norstar Energy office at the corner of 5th Street and 7th Avenue in downtown Calgary. CKEM-TV Edmonton went on the air September 18. Both stations were known as A-Channel.

The first program broadcast on CKAL was a two-hour live concert street party in front of the station, which included Colin James and Spirit of the West.

As part of its mandate, Craig established the A-Channel Drama Fund, with $14 million to be spent over seven years to support Alberta-based independent products for drama, music and variety programming. Along with its sister station, CKEM-TV in Edmonton, CKAL-TV emphasized programming that would not be uncomfortable for 12-year-olds, and fresh, informal coverage of local events, including high school football.

Early local programming introduced “The Big Breakfast,” a two-hour early morning show focusing on community events, local issues and volunteers. CKAL also launched “A-Channel News @ Six,” a half-hour evening news program anchored by Glen Carter, and “Live @ Five”, co-anchored by Kurt Stoodely and Tara McCool. The station’s first meteorologist was Darr Maqbool.

On March 15, Craig Broadcast Alberta Inc. received permission to decrease effective radiated power for CKAL-TV-1 Lethbridge from 51,500 watts to 46,600 watts. The transmitter site would be relocated approximately 10.7 kilometres south of the authorized site. The changes would improve the quality of the signal to the south.

Mark Campbell was appointed executive producer of news and entertainment programming for all Craig Broadcast Systems stations. He would also continue his similar role at A-Channel Calgary.

CKAL-TV won a Gold Ribbon Award from the Canadian Association of Broadcasters for community service for a medium market.

On April 10, CHUM Ltd. agreed to acquire Craig Media. Craig decided to sell due a financial crisis brought on by weak results at its stations in the West and greater than expected losses for CKXT-TV in Toronto.

On November 19, the CRTC approved the purchase of Craig Media by CHUM Ltd. and the sale of Toronto One (CKXT-TV) to TVA and Sun Media.

On August 2, A Channel Calgary was re-branded as City-tv Calgary “to take advantage of common names, creative elements and promotional opportunities” with other CHUM stations serving major cities.

Allan Waters, the founder of CHUM Limited, passed away at the age of 84, on December 3rd.

On July 12 it was announced that Bell Globemedia would pay C$1.7 billion for CHUM Ltd., in a deal that would see the company become part of the BCE-owned media conglomerate, subject to CRTC approval.  On August 31, the two companies announced that BGM had been successful in its offer to acquire approximately 6.7 million common shares and approximately 19.2 million non-voting Class B shares of CHUM.  The shares were to be placed in the hands of an independent trustee pursuant to a voting trust agreement approved by the CRTC.

On November 22, the CRTC approved the transfer of effective control of CHUM Limited from Mr. Allan Waters to his estate, following his death in December 2005. The approval represented the preliminary step to enable the transfer of CHUM’s shares to a trust, which received approval on July 12. This transfer was not related to the pending sale of CHUM toBell Globemedia. Prior to his death, Mr. Waters was the sole shareholder of Allan Waters Ltd., which in turn, owned approximately 87% of CHUM’s voting shares. The executors of the estate were James Allan Waters, Ronald Allan Waters, Sheryl Bourne and Robert Sutherland

On December 12th, it was announced that Bell Globemedia would henceforth be known as CTVglobemedia.

Early on the morning of December 2nd, Ted Rogers, founder and former Chief Executive of Rogers Communications, owners of CKAL-TV, died at his home in Toronto, after having suffered from congestive heart failure for some time.

On May 15th, following a hearing that began on April 27th, the CRTC announced a one-year licence renewal, effective September 1st 2009, for the Rogers Citytv stations, including CKAL-TV Calgary, “….to give these broadcasters some flexibility during the current period of economic uncertainty.” Group-based licence renewals would then be addressed in the spring of 2010. The Commission also stated that it recognized the impracticability of imposing any conditions relative to 1-1 ratios between Canadian and non-Canadian programming in the ensuing year, given the programming commitments that were already in place.

The Commission would however continue to explore various regulatory measures “…to ensure that English-language television broadcasters devote an appropriate proportion of their expenditures to Canadian programming.”

Dave Kelly, the long-time co-host of Citytv Calgary’s Breakfast Television, left the station after his last show the Thursday after Christmas. He’d been doing mornings since the show originated as The Big Breakfast on the old A-Channel 12 years ago.

On January 19th, CITY-TV head office in Toronto announced that it was “restructuring its operations”, with about 60 staffers being laid off across the country. The 6pm and 11pm newscasts would continue, but would be produced only in Toronto. Breakfast Television would be cut back from four hours to three in those cities where it played. The staff cuts represented approximately 6 per cent of the CITY-TV work-force.

On August 20, the CRTC approved the application by Rogers Broadcasting Limited to amend the broadcasting licence for CKAL-TV Calgary in order to add a digital transmitter in Calgary (CKAL-DT). The new transmitter would operate from the existing CKAL -TV tower on channel 49 with an average effective radiated power of 100,000 watts (effective height of antenna above average terrain of 378 metres).

On August 31, CKAL-DT (digital) began testing on channel 49. Broadcasting also continued on analog channel 5.

On October 7, the CRTC denied applications by Rogers Broadcasting Limited to reduce the overall minimum level of Canadian programming that must be broadcast by the Citytv and OMNI stations from 60% to 55%.

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.

Wally Fong, a 14-year veteran at Citytv/OMNI Calgary, was promoted to Operations Manager, Master Control. He had been Operations Supervisor. 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.

Effective with the start of the new year, Citytv quietly dropped the ‘TV’ from the end of its brand name – right across the country. The stations were now simply known as City. Rogers, noting that it wasn’t just TV anymore, revamped the on-air imagery, advertising and logos.

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.

Most of the staff at Rogers Radio Calgary joined their TV colleagues at City/OMNI’s downtown location, 535 7th Avenue S.W.

It was announced in June that City Calgary would begin producing two one-hour daily versions of CityNews (6:00 and 11:00 p.m.), beginning in the winter.

CKAL-DT kept it’s master control operations (in addition to it’s hub including CKEM, CHMI, CKVU, CJCO, CJEO, CHNM) until July. All Citytv/OMNI stations moved to a new hub in the Rogers Buildings at Bloor and Jarvis in Toronto.

In the summer, City Calgary announced it would launch CityNews at Six and CityNews Tonight at 11 p.m. as of September 3.