CHLT-DT

CHLT-TV was operating with a power of 170,000 watts video and 100,000 watts audio. La Tribune Ltee ownership: Hon. Jacob Nicol 0.10%, Sen. Charles B. Howard 0.10%, F. Edmund Barnard 0.10%, Mrs. Celine Desruisseaux 0.10%, Jean-Louis Gauthier 0.10%, Desruisseaux Inc. 49.75%, Trans-Ocean Press Ltee 49.75%. Desruisseaux Inc.’s ownership: Paul Desruisseaux 93.2%, Mrs. Celine Desruisseaux 6.5%, C. Fortin 0.1%, R. Cousineau 0.1%, G. G. Desruisseaux 0.1%. Trans-Ocean Press Ltee ownership: Alphee Gauthier 99.4%, Miss Claire Bedard 0.3%, Miss Marie-Ange Drouin 0.3%. Paul Desruisseaux was president. Alphee Gauthier was manager. John Gauthier was operations and commercial manager.

By the end of the year, the station was listed with an effective radiated power of 300,000 watts video and 186,000 watts audio. 

Ad: The greatest advertising medium in Quebec – CHLT-TV Channel 7 Sherbrooke. We cover the Montreal market.

By this time, CHLT was operating with 316,000 watts video and 186,000 watts audio.

Power changed to 170,000 watts video.

Philippe De Gaspe Beaubien, director of operations, Expo 67, was named president of Quebec Telemedia Inc., succeeding Claude Frenette, general counsel of Power Corp., the largest shareholder in QTI, which administered CHLT-AM-FM-TV and CKTS. The French stations operated under the name Radio-Television Sherbrooke (1967) Inc. with Jean-Louis Gauthier as president. CKTS was operated by subsidiary company, Telegram Printing & Publishing Co. Ltd. with Lt.-Col. John J. Dunn, president.

Robert Butler was promotion manager. Claude LaFrance left CHLT-TV to work on-air at the new CJRC-AM in Ottawa.

On June 17, Radio Television Sherbrooke (1967) Inc. was authorized to reduce CHLT-TV’s effective radiated power from 170,000 to 154,000 watts video and 100,000 to 36,000 watts audio, continue to use a directional antenna, and increase antenna height from 1920 to 2400 feet.

On the same date, CHLT Tele 7 Ltee was given approval to acquire CHLT-TV from Radio Television Sherbrooke (1967) Inc. This involved the sale of a controlling interest in CHLT-AM-TV and a number of other stations by Power Corp. to Philipe de Gaspe Beaubien’s Telemedia (Quebec) Inc. (owned by Telemedia Communications Ltee, in turn owned by Beaudem Ltee). Power would retain through ownership debentures, a large financial interest in the new company for a period of time. Philipe de Gaspe Beaubien would control more than 80% of the votes of the company.

CHLT-TV changed its affiliation in September to the TVA network. A new station, CKSH-TV signed on as the Radio-Canada affiliate.

The CRTC renewed the licences of CHLT and CHEM. CHLT was commended for being one of the most productive television stations in Quebec. The Commission was pleased with CHEM for the excellent technical quality of its local programming, including dramas which had won nation-wide acclaim.

On August 7, approval was granted for the sale of CHEM Tele 8 Ltee and CHLT Tele 7 Ltee (CHLT was a subsidiary of CHEM) from Telemedia Communications Ltd. to Pathonic Communications inc. (51% controlled by Paul G. Vien and family, 34% by Tele-Metropole inc and 15% by others), and to amalgamate the above companies with Pathonic and then operate under the Pathonic Communications inc. name. Paul Vien was a brother-in-law of Philippe de Gaspe Beaubien, who headed Telemedia. Andre Mercier would continue as president. Both CHEM and CHLT were TVA affiliates and it was anticipated that more TVA production would now originate at CHLT-TV.

Paul Desruisseaux passed away at age 76. He was a lawyer, senator, and former owner of La Tribune, CHLT-AM-TV and CKTS-AM.

On January 11, the CRTC renewed CHLT-TV’s licence until September 30, 1985.

Tele-Capital Ltd. was sold by Corporation de Gestion La Vérendrye to CHEM-TV Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pathonic Communications Inc. CHEM-TV Inc. then amalgamated with Tele-Capital Ltd. The amalgamated company became Tele-Capital Inc. (a subsidiary of Pathonic).

On March 7, the CRTC approved the application to amend the licence for CHEM-TV Trois-Rivières by authorizing the licensee to broadcast programs originating part-time from CFTM-TV Montreal and CHLT-TV Sherbrooke instead of programs originating part-time from CHLT-TV. In addition, the licensee would continue to broadcast programs originating from its studios in Trois-Rivières.

Télé-Métropole Inc. acquired control of Pathonic Network Inc., including CFCM-TV. Le Groupe Vidéotron Ltée owned 99.7% of the voting shares and 40.8% of all of the outstanding shares in Télé-Métropole at this time.

The corporate name was now Groupe TVA Inc.

By this time, CHLT operated with 325,000 watts video and 32,500 watts audio.

On August 13, Télé-Métropole Inc. was given approval to acquire 75% of Le Réseau de télévision TVA Inc. from Radio Nord Inc., Télé-Inter Rives Ltée and Télévision de la Baie des Chaleurs Inc. (25% each). This purchase gave Télé-Métropole 100% of the network.

The corporate name was now TM Multi-Régions Inc.

Télé-Métropole Inc. acquired CHLT-TV (and other stations) from its subsidiary, TM Multi-Régions Inc.

On January 23, the CRTC approved the application to amend the licence for CHLT-TV by adding to the licence the following condition of licence: In addition to the 12 minutes of advertising material permitted by subsection 11(1) of the Television Broadcasting Regulations, 1987, the licensee may broadcast more than 12 minutes of advertising material in any clock hour in a broadcast day, in order to broadcast infomercials as defined in Public Notice CRTC 1994-139 and in accordance with the criteria contained in that public notice, as amended.

Quebecor inc. subsidiary Quebecor Média inc. acquired Le Groupe Vidéotron ltée. Because Quebecor would now own two networks – TVA and TQS – the company was told to divest itself of TQS inc. Later in the year, TQS was sold to Cogeco Radio Television Inc. and Bell Globemedia Inc.

On May 15th, following a hearing that began on April 27th, the CRTC announced a two-year licence renewal, effective September 1st 2009, for the TVA Group stations, including CHLT-TV Sherbrooke, “….to give these broadcasters some flexibility during the current period of economic uncertainty.”

The CRTC approved the change to the ownership of Quebecor Media Inc. through the transfer of the shares held by Capital d’Amérique CDPQ inc. in QMI to CDP Capital d’Amérique Investissement inc., another CDPQ subsidiary. This transaction does not affect the effective control of QMI and of its licensee subsidiaries. QMI owns, through TVA Group Inc. and Videotron Ltd., broadcasting distribution undertakings, television programming undertakings, a pay-per-view undertaking, specialty services and a video-on-demand undertaking.

On July 9, the CRTC approved the application by TVA Group Inc. to amend the broadcasting licence for the television programming undertaking CHLT-TV Sherbrooke in order to add a digital transmitter at Sherbrooke. The transmitter will operate on channel 7 with an average effective radiated power of 2,369 watts (maximum ERP of 4,000 watts with an effective height of antenna above average terrain of 588.1 metres).

On July 12, the CRTC administratively renewed the licence for CHLT-DT until August 31, 2012. 

The deadline for stations in mandatory markets to switch from analog to digital was August 31. CHLT-TV became CHLT-DT on that date, retaining channel 7 (virtual 7.1) for its digital operation.

On April 26, the CRTC renewed the broadcasting licences for the national, French-language television network TVA and the conventional television stations associated with that network, to August 31, 2015. In its application, QMI proposed to maintain the current level of five hours per week of local programming broadcast by CHEM-DT Trois-Rivières, CFER-DT Rimouski, CHLT-DT Sherbrooke and CJPM Saguenay, and their respective transmitters. In addition, QMI declared that the licensee intended to maintain the current broadcast level of 18 hours of local programming per week for CFCM-DT Québec, while also requesting increased flexibility to be able to broadcast programs produced locally by CFCM-DT on the network. To that end, QMI proposed the deletion of the requirement that nine hours of local programming broadcast by CFCM-DT focus exclusively on the local Québec market. The Commission considered that QMI’s proposal to broadcast at least 5 hours and 30 minutes of locally produced news, including two newscasts on weekends, was commendable and would contribute significantly to the reflection of the Québec market. In response to concerns expressed by interveners from this community regarding the loss of local flavour in CFCM-DT programming and news, the Commission would continue to require that, of the 18 hours of local programming per broadcast week, 9 hours must focus specifically on the Québec region, including the 5 hours and 30 minutes of local newscasts. However, the Commission considered it unnecessary that the remaining 3 hours and 30 minutes be broadcast exclusively in the local Québec market and considered that it may be broadcast on the TVA network. In addition, if the newscasts were rebroadcast in full, the Commission required that the licensee not count these rebroadcasts when calculating the number of broadcast hours set out in the conditions of licence for each station.