CTV's next blitz of analog OTA transmitters shutdown

[InMontreal]

Bell Media submitted to the CRTC their list of demands... buried in a ton of .doc and .xls and .pdf pages was a list of OTA transmitters they want to shut down.
You can find the whole thing here : http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2016/2016-225.htm

The most interesting ones :

- Ontario : CJOH-TV-8 Cornwall (nearby Montreal), CKNX-TV Wingham (rebroadcster of CFPL-DT), CKVR-TV-1 Parry Sound
- Sask : almost all analog retransmitters.

No surprise here, Bell is also requesting to remove all educational programming from CTV Two Alberta (Access) due to lack of government funding and run it as full CTV Two station with full simsub rights, just like CTV Two Atlantic. On this point, the CRTC should say « HELL NO ». Bell opted to shutdown CJAL-TV Edmonton and CIAN-TV Calgary transmitters on analog shutdown day Aug 31st 2011, their « educational » licence guaranteed them mandatory basic cable carriage. Without the educational portion, I don't see the point of a privately-owned channel with simsub rights without an OTA transmitter.

After Toronto (#1) and Vancouver (#2), Edmonton (#3) and Calgary (#4) are the biggest english-language markets. Halifax/Darmouth's market size is smaller than London/Wingham market where Bell killed off an entire station and is about to turn off its remaining transmitter. ASN (Atlantic Satellite Network) launched for a reason, by combining Halifax NS, Moncton/Fredericton NB, St. John's NL, Sydney NS and Charlottetown PEI on such a wide territory, served with one cable station made much sense.

[Mayhem]

I don't see the point of a privately-owned channel with simsub rights without an OTA transmitter.

They'll probably argue that not enough viewers exist to justify operation them from various paid "experts", but more than likely they're trying to squeeze the last few OTA viewers in to a Bell TV subscription. Even if its small, any new subscribers to its service will always look good in a investor presentation.

[InMontreal]

Montreal blogger Fagstein published an article about it on June 27 :

Bell Media proposes shutdown of 40 CTV and CTV Two retransmitters
http://blog.fagstein.com/2016/06/27/...tter-shutdown/

All 40 retransmitters are analog, as we know, requires a lot more power than digital broadcasting to cover a specific contour, comes with snow, ghost images, and intereference. In an ideal world, these should have been converted to digital, but after the CBC decided to shutdown all of their 600+ analog retransmitters and the CRTC approved that in 2012, that digital conversion "ideal" was doomed. The costs of maintenance, land/accessibility, electricity bill and source linking, in rural areas where simsub rules don't quality just don't add any value to investment.

It's not like Bell *needs* the spared money, but they can justify individual station's budget balance and stop whining about Fee-for-Carriage. On the other hand, digital transmitter is better than analog, and analog is better than nothing.

It's also not surprising to notice that Bell hasn't upgraded some stations/transmitters to digital : CKNY-TV North Bay, CITO-TV Timmins, CICI-TV Sudbury, CHBX-TV Sault Ste. Marie, CIPA-TV Prince Albert, CICC-TV Yorkton, CJCB-TV Sydney, CHRO-TV transmitter in Pembroke, semi-stellite CFRN-TV-6 Red Deer and Astral's former CBC affiliates CFTK-TV Terrace and CJDC-TV Dawson Creek.

[Test Pattern]

Montreal blogger Fagstein published an article about it on June 27 :

Bell Media proposes shutdown of 40 CTV and CTV Two retransmitters
http://blog.fagstein.com/2016/06/27/...tter-shutdown/

All 40 retransmitters are analog, as we know, requires a lot more power than digital broadcasting to cover a specific contour, comes with snow, ghost images, and intereference. In an ideal world, these should have been converted to digital, but after the CBC decided to shutdown all of their 600+ analog retransmitters and the CRTC approved that in 2012, that digital conversion "ideal" was doomed. The costs of maintenance, land/accessibility, electricity bill and source linking, in rural areas where simsub rules don't quality just don't add any value to investment.

It's not like Bell *needs* the spared money, but they can justify individual station's budget balance and stop whining about Fee-for-Carriage. On the other hand, digital transmitter is better than analog, and analog is better than nothing.

It's also not surprising to notice that Bell hasn't upgraded some stations/transmitters to digital : CKNY-TV North Bay, CITO-TV Timmins, CICI-TV Sudbury, CHBX-TV Sault Ste. Marie, CIPA-TV Prince Albert, CICC-TV Yorkton, CJCB-TV Sydney, CHRO-TV transmitter in Pembroke, semi-stellite CFRN-TV-6 Red Deer and Astral's former CBC affiliates CFTK-TV Terrace and CJDC-TV Dawson Creek.

I wonder if they will ever do away with the CJOH deseronto one?!!!

[InMontreal]

I wonder if they will ever do away with the CJOH deseronto one?!!!

The 100kW Deseronto transmitter is scheduled for shutdown, along with the 260kW Cornwall retransmitter.

When I check Google Maps, it makes sense : Corus' CTV affiliates CKWS-DT Kingston and CHEX-DT-1 Brighton are nearby, local and HD.

[bigoranget]

OTA reception really sucks in Cottage country these days. Pretty much the only channels you get depending on where you are located is CTV, CTV2, Global and CHCH and most of the time you are getting a variation of these 4 and not necessarily all 4. No CBC, No City, No TVO. It would be nice if you could at the very least access one of the following: CTV, CTV Two, Global, City, TVO, CBC, Ici Tele and TFO. With multicasting, there was no reason why this couldn't have happened.

[Donovan's Monkey]

I don't know if this was pointed out here in some other thread, but it seems CFTO changed from transmitting on ch.9 to 8, back in April.
https://www.ctv.ca/HELP/Over-The-Air-Transmitter-Channel-Changes

I only noticed because I had heard it mentioned during The Beaverton's 'Comedy Con' event at the JFL42 festival that they would be having an election special, and when I connected the antenna to my TV on Friday for the first time in many months, CFTO was strangely blank until I did a re-scan to set the new tuning for all local (Toronto/Hamilton/Buffalo) OTA channels, as CFTO wasn't the only one that had to change.