CBC Television

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
For the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation's television service, see CBC TV 8 (Barbados).
CBC Television
Type Broadcast television network
Country Flag of Canada Canada
Availability    National (available in parts of northern U.S. and Caribbean, via cable or antenna)
Owner Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Key people Richard Stursberg, executive vice president
Tony Burman, editor in chief
Kristine Layfield, director of programming
Launch date September 6, 1952
Website cbc.ca/television

CBC Television is a Canadian English language television network. It is owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Contents

[edit] Overview

CBC Television provides a complete network schedule throughout the day, seven days a week, in most cases feeding the same programming at the same local times nationwide, except to the Newfoundland Standard Time Zone, where programs air 30 minutes "late". As of 6:00 a.m. on October 9, 2006, the network went to a 24-hour schedule, becoming one of the last major English-language broadcasters to do so. Previously, most CBC-owned stations actually signed off the airwaves during the early morning hours (typically 1:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.). Instead of the infomercials aired by most private stations, or a simulcast of CBC Newsworld in the style of BBC One's nightly simulcast of BBC News 24, CBC will use the time to air repeats, including local news, primetime series, movies, and other programming from the CBC library. [1] However, its French counterpart, Radio-Canada still signs off every night.

While historically there has been room for regional differences in the schedule, as there is today (see "Stations", below), for CBC-owned stations funding has decreased to the point that most of these stations only broadcast 30 minutes a day of local news, and usually no other local programming. However, the CBC has recently indicated that local programming will be expanded in some markets in fall 2005 as a pilot project.

Until the mid-1990s, the network carried a variety of American programs in addition to its core Canadian programming, directly competing with private Canadian broadcasters such as CTV and Global. Since then, it has restricted itself to Canadian programs, a handful of British programs, and a few American movies and off-network repeats.

In 2002, CBC Television and CBC Newsworld became the first broadcasters in Canada (and very likely the first broadcasters worldwide[citation needed]) required to provide closed captioning for 100% of their programming. On those networks, only outside commercials do not need to be captioned, though a bare majority of them are aired with captions. All shows, bumpers, billboards, promos, and other internal programming must be captioned. The requirement stems from a human rights complaint filed by deaf lawyer Henry Vlug that was settled in 2002.

[edit] Programming

See also: List of programs broadcast by CBC

[edit] News and current affairs

The CBC's flagship newscast, The National, airs weeknights at 10:00. Until October 2006, CBC-owned and operated stations aired a second broadcast of the program at 11 p.m; this later broadcast included only the main news portion of the program, and excluded the analysis and documentary segment. This second airing was replaced in October 2006 with CBC News: The Hour, which was previously seen earlier on Newsworld.

CBC News: Sunday Night airs in the 10:00 slot on Sunday nights, while there is only a short news update, at most, late Saturday evenings -- during hockey season, this update is usually found during the first intermission of the second game of the doubleheader on Hockey Night In Canada.

Early evenings are filled by local news, titled CBC News at Six in most markets. Saturday Report airs at 6:00 p.m., while there is no early Sunday-evening newscast. Other newscasts air weekdays at 6:00 a.m. and noon. Weekly newsmagazine the fifth estate is also a CBC mainstay, as are documentary series such as The Passionate Eye.

See also: CBC News

[edit] Sports

One of the most popular shows on CBC Television is the weekly Saturday night broadcast of NHL hockey games, Hockey Night in Canada. It has been televised since 1952. However, during the NHL lockout and subsequent cancellation of the 2004-2005 hockey season, CBC instead aired various recent and classic movies, branded as Movie Night in Canada, on Saturday nights. Many cultural groups criticized this and suggested the CBC air games from minor hockey leagues; the CBC responded that most such broadcast rights were already held by other groups, but it did base each Movie Night broadcast from a different Canadian hockey venue.

Other than hockey, CBC Sports properties include the Canadian Football League, the Olympic Games through the 2008 edition, Toronto Blue Jays Baseball, Toronto FC Soccer, and various other amateur and professional events. It was also the exclusive carrier of Canadian Curling Association events during the 2004–2005 season.

Due to disappointing results and fan outrage over many draws being carried on CBC Country Canada, the association tried to cancel its multiyear deal with the CBC signed in 2004. After the CBC threatened legal action, both sides eventually came to an agreement under which early-round rights reverted to TSN.

However, as of June 15, 2006, the Canadian Curling Association announced that TSN/CTV will obtain exclusive rights to curling broadcasts in Canada as of the 2008-09 season[2], shutting the CBC out of the championship weekend for the first time in 40-plus years.

CBC Sports suffered another major blow when it was announced that after the 2007 season CFL regular season games and The Grey Cup will be moving to TSN, ending CBC's tenure with the CFL. It has been stated that the CFL was not happy with the CBC's lackluster production due to a lockout of CBC's union employees which forced the network to use CBC management to work the behind the scenes telecast and use stadium Public address announcers in place of their regular announce crew.[3]

But in some good news for the network, beginning June 23 with Toronto Vs Colorado Rockies interleague game,they begin the first of a two year deal to broadcast Toronto Blue Jays games [4], along with games of the Toronto FC of Major League Soccer.[5] In August, it was also announced that CBC would broadcast National Basketball Association games involving the Toronto Raptors, starting with the 2007-08 NBA Season.

See also: CBC Sports

[edit] Entertainment

Among CBC Television's best-known primetime series are satirical comedy series Royal Canadian Air Farce, This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Rick Mercer Report, and dramas such as This is Wonderland and Da Vinci's City Hall (the successor to Da Vinci's Inquest). In recent years, British series such as Coronation Street and Doctor Who have been given greater prominence; as noted above, it now carries very few American series — afternoon strip reruns of The Simpsons, Frasier and Arrested Development are the only American programs currently appearing on the network's regular schedule. In general, ratings have dipped significantly since this shift, leading the CBC to invest more in "high-impact" programming such as miniseries, which have not done as poorly as continuing series.

In fall 2006, daytime programming was revamped. While there are still repeats of CBC and foreign series, new talk shows such as The Gill Deacon Show (airing twice daily) and the regional franchise Living have been added as well.

In a controversial decision during the summer of 2006, The National was bumped to 11 p.m. on Tuesday nights in the Eastern Time Zone, in order to simulcast the American airing of The One: Making a Music Star. A Canadian version of the series was scheduled to launch during the following season in another time slot, but a condition of the CBC's franchise deal for this production was to simulcast the ABC production. This also represented the first time in over a decade that the CBC had scheduled an American-produced series in prime time. Due to record-low ratings on ABC, The One flopped after only two weeks and four episodes; the Canadian version has been postponed indefinitely, while The National returned to 10 p.m. five nights a week. Despite the press coverage over this move, the newscast had in fact been pushed back on numerous past occasions in the east (especially in Atlantic Canada) due to live programming such as the NHL playoffs, with little outcry.

[edit] New strategy

In 2006, the CBC announced radical changes to its primetime lineup, including the following new series to premiere that fall:

Many were surprised by these changes to the CBC schedule, which were apparently intended to attract a younger audience to the network; some suggested they might alienate the core CBC viewership. Another note of criticism was made when the network decided to move The National in some time zones to simulcast the American version of The One over the summer. This later became a moot point, as The One was taken off the air after two weeks after extremely low American and Canadian ratings, and the newscast resumed its regular schedule.

On January 9, 2007, CBC began airing a highly publicized new series called Little Mosque on the Prairie, a comedy about a Muslim family living in rural Saskatchewan.

[edit] Children's programming

Children's and youth programming, often marketed as "Kids' CBC" (for younger kids) or "The Outlet" (formerly The X/The Void) (for pre-teens), occupies a significant portion of the morning and late-afternoon schedules on weekdays, and much of weekend mornings as well. However, despite a number of revamps, its influence is in decline with the continued rise of various specialty services serving the market.

[edit] CBC HD

On March 5, 2005, CBC Television launched an HD simulcast of its Toronto station CBLT. There is also an HD simulcast of Vancouver's CBUT, Ottawa's CBOT and Montreal's CBMT. CBC-HD is available nationally via satellite and digital cable operators as well as for free via Digital Terrestrial Television using a regular TV antenna and a digital tuner (included in most new TVs) on the following channels:

  • Toronto: 20
  • Montreal: 20
  • Ottawa: 25
  • Vancouver: 58

Starting in Fall 2007, CBC will begin broadcasting The National in HD.

[edit] Stations

See also: List of CBC television stations

Most CBC television stations, including those in the major cities, are owned and operated by the CBC itself. CBC O&O stations deviate very little from the main network schedule, although there are some regional differences from time to time. For on-air identification, most CBC stations use the CBC brand rather than their call letters, not identifying themselves specifically until sign-on or sign-off (though some, like Toronto's CBLT, don't ID themselves at all). All CBC O&O stations have a standard call-letter naming convention, in that the first two letters are "CB" and the last letter is "T". Only the third letter varies from market to market; however, that letter is always the same as the third letter of the CBC Radio One and CBC Radio Two stations in the same market. An exception to this rule are the CBC North stations in Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Iqaluit.

Some stations that broadcast from smaller cities are private affiliates of the CBC, that is, stations which are owned by commercial broadcasters but air a predominantly CBC schedule. Such stations generally follow the CBC schedule, although they may opt out of some CBC programming in order to air locally-produced programs, syndicated series or programs purchased from other broadcasters, such as CH or A-Channel, which do not have a broadcast outlet in the same market. In these cases, the CBC programming being displaced may be broadcast at a different time than the network, or may not be broadcast on the station at all. Most private affiliates generally opt out of CBC's afternoon schedule and Thursday night arts programming. Private affiliates carry the 10 p.m. broadcast of The National as a core part of the CBC schedule, but generally omitted the 11 p.m. repeat (which is no longer broadcast). Most private affiliates produce their own local newscasts for a duration of 35 minutes. Some of the private affiliates have begun adding CBC's overnight programming to their schedules since the network went to 24-hour broadcasting.

Private CBC affiliates are not as common as they were in the past, as many such stations have been purchased either by the CBC itself or by CHUM Limited, becoming A-Channel stations. One private CBC affiliate in Western Canada, CHBC, joined CH on February 27, 2006. When a private CBC affiliate reaffiliates with another network, the CBC normally adds a retransmitter of its nearest O&O station to ensure that CBC service is continued. However, due to an agreement between CHBC and CFJC in nearby Kamloops, CFJC has also disaffilated from the CBC on February 27, 2006, but no retransmitters were installed in the licence area.

CBC television stations in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and Yukon, branded as CBC North, tailor their programming mostly to the local native population, and broadcast in many native languages such as Inuktitut, Gwichʼin, and Dene.

[edit] CBC Television worldwide

[edit] Carriage of CBC News

From 1994 through July 2005, CBC news programming was aired in the United States on Newsworld International.

On September 11, 2001, several American broadcasters without their own news operations, including C-SPAN, carried the CBC's coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and Washington, DC. In the days after September 11, C-SPAN carried CBC's nightly newscast, The National, anchored by Peter Mansbridge.

C-SPAN has also carried CBC's coverage of major events affecting Canadians. Among them:

Several PBS stations also air some CBC programming, especially The Red Green Show, although no CBC programming currently airs on the full network schedule.

[edit] Border audiences

In the United States border communities such as Bellingham, Detroit, and Buffalo, CBC Television stations can be received over-the-air and have a significant audience. Such a phenomenon can also take place within Great Lakes communities such as Ashtabula, Ohio, which receives programming from CBC's London, Ontario transmitter, based upon prevailing atmospheric conditions over Lake Erie.

  • Buffalo is known for its high viewership of Hockey Night in Canada. Also, most people from Michigan that receive CBC prefer the CBC coverage of the NHL finals as well as Hockey Night in Canada. The CBC's coverage of the Olympic Games has also found a significant audience in American border regions.

[edit] Caribbean and Bermuda

Several Caribbean nations carry feeds of CBC TV:

[edit] Slogans

  • 1966: "Television is CBC"
  • 1970 (ca.): "When you watch, watch the best"
  • 1977: "Bringing Canadians Together"
  • 1980: "We Are the CBC"
  • 1984: "Look to us for good things" (general) / "Good To Know" (news and public affairs)
  • 1988–1989: "Best on the Box"
  • 1990–1991: "CBC and You"
  • 1992–1994: "Go Public" / "CBC: Public Broadcasting" (that season, the CBC emphasised the fact that they are a public broadcaster)
  • 1995–2001: "Television to Call Our Own"
  • 2002: "Canada's Own"

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Broadcast television networks and systems in Canada

English: CBC | CTV | Global | Citytv | CH | A-Channel | CTS

French: Radio-Canada | TVA | TQS

Multiple languages: OMNI | APTN

Defunct systems: A-Channel (Craig) | BBS/ONT/STN | NOWTV || See also: Educational stations | All local stations
CBC Television
English networks: CBC Television | CBC North | CBC Newsworld | CBC Country Canada | Documentary Channel
French networks: Télévision de Radio-Canada | Réseau de l'information | ARTV
Digital-only channels: Galaxie
Defunct channels: Newsworld International | CBC Parliamentary Television Network | Trio
Proposed channels: CBC-2 | Télé-2
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBC_Television"
Personal tools
In other languages