CIII-DT

"CIII" redirects here. It is also the Roman numeral for 103.

CIII-DT-41

Toronto, Paris, London, Ottawa, and Southern Ontario
City of license	Toronto, Ontario
Branding	Global Toronto Global
Slogan	We Know Toronto
Channels	Digital: 41 (UHF) Virtual: 41.1 (PSIP)
Translators	see Transmitters and facilities
Affiliations	Global
Owner	Shaw Media (Shaw Television Limited Partnership)
First air date	January 6, 1974 (in Paris; moved to Toronto in 2009)
Call letters' meaning	C III - Canada's third television network, and the station's cable 3 position on many cable systems in Ontario
Former callsigns	CKGN-TV (1974-1984) CIII-TV (1984-2011)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 41 (1988-2011)
Former affiliations	Independent (1974-1997)
Transmitter power	100 kW
Height	503.0 m
Transmitter coordinates	43°38′33″N 79°23′14″W / 43.64250°N 79.38722°W / 43.64250; -79.38722 (CIII-TV-41)
Licensing authority	CRTC
Website	Global Toronto

CIII-DT-41 (known on-air as Global Toronto or simply as Global) is the Global owned-and-operated broadcast television station in Toronto, Ontario and serves as the network's flagship station. It broadcasts a high-definition digital signal on UHF channel 41 from a transmitter atop the CN Tower in downtown Toronto, and serves much of the population of Ontario through a network of 13 transmitters across primarily the southern and central portions of the Canadian province. Owned by Shaw Media, its studios are located on Barber Greene Road (near Leslie Street) in the Don Mills district of central Toronto. This station can also be seen on Rogers Cable channels 3 and 116 and in high definition on digital channel 517. This station is also available on Bell TV channel 211 and in high definition on channel 1052.

History

The station was launched on January 6, 1974 under the callsign CKGN-TV and upon its launch, had branded itself as the "Global Television Network", a name which reflected its then-unprecedented coverage of several Ontario markets through a network of satellite-fed transmitters. From its launch in 1974 until 2009, the station's main transmitter was licensed to Paris, a small town near Brantford, but following a licence amendment in 2009, Toronto is now the station's primary city of licence.^[1] Through its entire history, however, the station's main studio has always been in Toronto.

It had been hoped to be distinct from CBC and CTV by airing a number of its own Canadian-made programs. Three months later, the station was in deep financial trouble, and had cancelled many of its own programs. To survive, the network essentially became a clone of CTV, airing as much non-Canadian content as allowed (at the time, Canadian content regulations required 50 percent overall, with 60 percent in prime time). The station's financial difficulties continued until it was bailed out by two conglomerates in 1977, one based in Ontario, the other in western Canada. Several years later, both tried to buy out the other's interest, and the CRTC ended the contest by allowing the western group to take full ownership, a landmark change in Canadian broadcasting that ended the dominance of central Canada.

The callsign CKGN-TV was changed to CIII-TV in January 1984, to mark the 10th anniversary of the station. The Windsor/Cottam transmitter would be an exception for a few years as it continued to be identified in CRTC documents as CKGN-TV-1, perhaps because of licensing issues with nearby Detroit broadcasters (see "Transmitters and Facilities" below). ("CKGN" was a former callsign for a television station in North Bay, Ontario from 1955 to 1962, known today as CKNY-TV. The "CKGN" calls are now used by a Kapuskasing, Ontario radio station, CKGN-FM.)

CIII has evolved into a much more Toronto-centric station in recent years. Previously, it employed a number of freelance journalists from across the province who filed reports for Global News. This, along with extensive provincewide weather coverage, gave the station a distinctive Ontario feel for many years. In the late 1990s, its focus turned almost exclusively toward Toronto.

CIII was originally owned by Global Communications, which was fully acquired by Izzy Asper in 1989 and later became known as Canwest. Asper's stations (including CKVU-TV in Vancouver, Saskatchewan stations CFRE-TV/Regina and CFSK-TV/Saskatoon, CKND-TV in Winnipeg and CIHF-TV in Halifax) formed a mini-network for a number of years that was known as the Canwest Global System, which eventually evolved into the present-day Global and all of the stations began using the "Global" brand (in addition to CIII) in 1997. Around this time, CIII became known internally as "Global Ontario", but generally avoided the name on-air, even after most other Global stations began using regional branding in 2006. The Ontario station began to identify as "Global Toronto" in 2009 following the aforementioned licence amendment, but continues to use only the main Global logo in its bug, unlike other Global stations.

News operation

CIII-DT currently produces a total of 28 hours of local newscasts each week (with five hours on weekdays and 1½ hours on weekends).

Early on, its flagship news program Global News was developed under the guidance of Bill Cunningham, a CBC News veteran, and in the beginning it was anchored by Peter Trueman in Toronto and Peter Desbarats in Ottawa. In the early years it was one of the most successful and important programs the station had.^[2] Peter Trueman has noted in his memoir that the program was groundbreaking: "Our newsroom-studio combination ... served as a model for the new CHAN-TV facilities in Vancouver, and it is currently [1979] the inspiration for Ted Turner's new Cablenews operation in Atlanta". The CBC also looked to it for inspiration when it changed its national news format in the early 1980s.^[3] The program also pioneered the use of "regional correspondents", usually print or radio journalists, who would regularly advise the station about stories in their part of Ontario. This allowed field producers and a Global crew to target key stories of the day. "This is the main reason that much of Global's ex-urban coverage has been so effective", Trueman wrote in 1979.^[4]

During the 1980s, Global greatly expanded its news operation, with an hour-and-a-half of news starting at 5:30 p.m., plus news at noon and at 11 p.m. By the end of the 1980s, the noon news was simply called News at Noon, the 5:30 news was called First News, the 6:00 news was called The Six O'Clock Report, and the 11:00 news was called The World Tonight. Trueman left in 1988. Other anchors over the years have included Mike Anscombe, Beverly Thomson, John Dawe, Jane Gilbert, Peter Kent, Loretta Sullivan, Bob McAdorey, Thalia Assuras, and Anne-Marie Mediwake.

In keeping with the avoidance of regional branding noted above, CIII used "Global News", as opposed to a regional name such as "Global Ontario", as its main news brand. In the fall of 2009, however, for news programming, it began using "Global Toronto", since its newscasts focus primarily on that city. Individual newscasts are titled News Hour, News Final, etc. Global Toronto doesn't have its own entertainment or sports reporters. Entertainment news is provided by Entertainment Tonight Canada and sports news is provided by the all sports channel The Score Television Network.

From 1994 to 2001, CIII also produced First National, which was anchored by Peter Kent and seen at 6:30 p.m. weeknights. In 2001, the program was replaced by Canada Tonight, which in turn was replaced that fall with Global National, anchored by Kevin Newman, it originated from Global BC in Vancouver before moving to a dedicated studio in Ottawa in February 2008. From February to August 2009, CIII simulcast CHCH-TV's Morning Live, originating in Hamilton, Ont., from 7:00 AM to 9:00 a.m. CIII previously produced its own morning show called Global News Morning, but dropped it after low ratings and as a cost-cutting measure. The Noon News Hour was cancelled as well. The CHCH simulcast was later dropped after Canwest sold the Hamilton station to Channel Zero, with CIII airing second-run lifestyle programming in the morning timeslot, as well as reruns the previous night's News Hour Final.

On October 11, 2011 CIII-TV launched a three-hour morning newscast titled The Morning Show. Hosted by Liza Fromer and Dave Gerry (both former hosts of Citytv's Breakfast Television programme in Toronto and Vancouver, respectively), production of the show takes place in a new storefront studio at Shaw Media's Bloor Street building in Downtown Toronto; Kris Reyes serves as the news anchor of the show, and Daru Dhillon provides weather forecasts. The new programme runs from 6 to 9 a.m. ET. The announcement also coincided with the announcements of new local morning shows for other Global stations across Canada.^[5] The station also moved its early-evening newscast, News Hour, a half-hour earlier to 5:30 p.m. to coincide with a shift of Global National to the 6:30 p.m. slot, joining Montreal's CKMI-DT and Halifax's CIHF-DT as the only Global stations to carry the network's national newscast in that timeslot.^[6]

On August 27, 2012, Global Toronto launched a half-hour midday newscast on weekdays at noon, marking the return of a noon newscast to CIII since 2009. Unlike the existing lunch hour newscasts carried on Global's sister stations, the newscast will air for 30 minutes instead of one hour; the addition is part of an expansion of local news programming on Global owned-and-operated stations across Canada.^[7]

News/station presentation

Newscast titles

• Global News (1974–present)^[8]
• The Trueman Report (11 p.m. newscast; 1979–1988)
• First News (5:30 p.m. newscast; early 1980s–1997)^[9]

Station slogans

• "We Know Toronto" (2009–present)

This film, television or video-related list is incomplete; you can help by with reliably sourced additions.

News team^[10]

Anchors

• Rosey Edeh - The Morning Show(weekdays from 6-9:30 a.m.)& The News at Noon (weekdays at noon)^[11]
• Liza Fromer - The Morning Show (weekday mornings from 6:00-9:30 a.m.)
• Carolyn MacKenzie - News Hour Final (weeknights at 11:00 p.m.)
• Anne Mroczkowski - News Hour (weeknights at 5:30 p.m.)
• Kris Reyes - The Morning Show (weekday mornings from 6:00-9:30 a.m.)
• Antony Robart - The Morning Show - Local Edition (weekdays from 6-9:00 a.m.) & The News at Noon (weekdays at noon)^[11]
• Leslie Roberts - The Morning Show - National Edition (weekdays at 9:00 a.m.) & News Hour (weeknights at 5:30)
• TBD - |Evening News & News Final (weekends at 6:00 and 11:00 p.m.)

Local program hosts

• Susan Hay - host of Making A Difference; also fill-in anchor
• Leslie Roberts - host of Focus Ontario

Weather team

• Anthony Farnell - lead meteorologist; News Hour and News Hour Final (weeknights at 5:30 and 11:00 p.m.); also seen on CKMI-DT/Montreal
• Rosey Edeh - weather anchor; The Morning Show (weekday mornings from 6:00-9:00 a.m.) and The News at Noon (weekdays at noon)
• Michelle Jobin - weather specialist; Evening News and News Final (weekends at 6:00 and 11:00 p.m.)
• Debbie Neufert - substitute meteorologist

Traffic

• Rosey Edeh - traffic anchor; The Morning Show (weekday mornings from 6:00-9:00 a.m.)
• Kimberly Fowler - airborne traffic reporter

Reporters

• Mark Carcasole
• Alan Carter - Queen's Park Bureau chief
• Marianne Dimain
• Dave Gerry
• Rob Leth
• Rob Malcolm
• Carey Marsden
• Mark McAllister
• Catherine McDonald - crime specialist
• Lama Nicolas
• Sean O'Shea - Consumer SOS investigative reporter
• Jennifer Palisoc
• Beatrice Politi - family health reporter
• Cindy Pom
• Jackson Proskow - municipal affairs reporter
• Antohy Robart
• Minna Rhee
• Terese Sears
• David Shum
• Allison Vuchnich - Global special features reporter, also reporting for Global National and 16x9 - The Bigger Picture (formerly health reporter)
• Laura Zilke

Former on-air staff

• Daru Dhillon - weather & traffic anchor for The Morning Show (weekday mornings from 6-9 a.m.) ^[12]

Transmitters

Studios and offices are located at 81 Barber Greene Road in the Don Mills section of Toronto, the same address from which broadcasts began in 1974. Secondary studio and news bureau facilities are located at the National Press Centre in Ottawa.

A series of rebroadcast transmitters relay the CIII signal to much of Ontario. Most of these use the call sign CIII followed by a number to denote their status as rebroadcasters, except in Sudbury and North Bay where the CFGC call sign is assigned. The most likely explanation for using CFGC is that the close resemblance between the number 1 and the letter I would make CIII-TV-11 an undesirable call sign for Sudbury, while North Bay couldn't use CIII-TV-2 as that call sign is already in use in Bancroft.

These six transmitters formed the original 1974 service:

• CKGN-TV Channel 6 from Paris (serving Hamilton, Brantford and Kitchener-Waterloo)
• CKGN-TV-1 Channel 22 from Cottam (near Windsor; also serving Detroit, Michigan)
• CKGN-TV-2 Channel 2 from Bancroft (serving Belleville)
• CKGN-TV-6 Channel 6 from Gatineau, Quebec (Camp Fortune site, near Ottawa)
• CKGN-TV-22 Channel 22 from Uxbridge (near Toronto; the most powerful transmitter in Canada at the time)
• CKGN-TV-29 Channel 29 from Oil Springs (near Sarnia)

The Cottam transmitter was frequently blank during the airing of prime-time American imports; Windsor is reckoned as part of the Detroit market for purposes of programming rights. This also affected CBC's station in Windsor, CBET, which frequently had to air alternative programs. For more information on this, see Media in Windsor, Ontario and Media in Detroit.

In 1986, the CRTC approved the relocation of the Windsor-area transmitter from Cottam to Stevenson.^[13] This transmitter (then CIII-TV-1) was silent for several years following a transmitter fire in the late 1970s. Some time after this, the CIII-TV-22 call letters from the now-disused Uxbridge transmitter were re-assigned to the Stevenson transmitter. The transmitter is located southwest of Wheatley, between Wheatley and Leamington, but its signal is aimed northeast (towards Chatham–Kent), and barely reaches Windsor and Detroit—presumably to protect the Detroit stations.

CIII-TV-22 (the transmitter in Uxbridge) had an effective radiated power of 5 MW, making it Canada's most-powerful transmitter.^[14][15]

The Uxbridge transmitter was eliminated in 1988, replaced by CIII-TV-41, broadcasting from the CN Tower in Toronto.^[16] For all intents and purposes, given that the station is based in Toronto, this was CIII's main transmitter and Global's flagship even before the station officially moved its licence to Toronto in 2009. This was the case with the Uxbridge transmitter as well. Starting in 2008, CIII began sending its signal to the Toronto transmitter first, since the Paris transmitter did not yet have digital capability.

Other transmitters were gradually introduced, including (launch dates in parenthesis):

• CIII-TV-7 Channel 7 from Midland (November 1987, serving Barrie)
• CIII-TV-4 Channel 4 from Owen Sound (June 1988)
• CIII-TV-27 Channel 27 from Peterborough (October 1988)
• CFGC-TV Channel 11 from Sudbury (December 1992)
• CFGC-TV-2 Channel 2 from North Bay (December 1992)
• CIII-TV-13 Channel 13 from Timmins (December 1992)
• CIII-TV-12 Channel 12 from Sault Ste. Marie (December 1992)
• CIII-TV-55 Channel 55 from Fort Erie (early 1993, serving Niagara Falls and the southern Niagara Region; signal also reaches Buffalo, New York)

CIII is not available in Thunder Bay, but Thunder Bay Television station CHFD broadcasts a large amount of Global programming and uses the Global branding. TBTV's owners, the Dougall family, were concerned about Global threatening their local television monopoly (DougallMedia controls all local network television output for the Thunder Bay region^[17] and had previously lobbied the CRTC to cease CHCH-TV's cable transmissions in the mid-1990s^[18]) and pressured the CRTC to deny Global's application to build a transmitter there. However, in 2009, Thunder Bay Television switched the affiliation of CHFD from CTV to Global. As a result, Global programming is available in Thunder Bay, just not via CIII-TV's province-wide network of repeaters. Similarly, in Kenora, the Shaw-owned former CTV affiliate, CJBN-TV, switched to full-time Global programming in late 2011.

Initial attempts to cover Peterborough and Kingston from the Bancroft transmitter had yielded poor to marginal results; this signal has since been largely supplanted (for Peterborough only) by the more-powerful CIII-TV-27.

Global's CIII-TV-41 Toronto, along with CHCH Hamilton and Global BC began over-the-air high-definition broadcasts in 2008.^[19]

In the early 1990s, additional transmitters were added to expand Global's footprint in Ontario.^[20]

Digital television

Following analog television shutdown and digital conversion, digital television receivers in areas converted to digital will display the local transmitter's virtual channel (or PSIP) as "x.1", with "x" being the station's analog channel number.^[21]

Digital channels

In July 2009, CIII-DT-41 in Toronto began broadcasting. After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which took place on August 31, 2011,^[21] CIII-DT-41 moved from channel 65 to its current analog channel number, 41, following transition, because of the phaseout of channels 52-69.

Global transitioned CIII-TV Paris, CIII-TV-6 Ottawa and CIII-TV-7 Midland (serving Barrie) transmitters to digital on August 31, 2011. CIII-TV-22 Stevenson (Windsor and Chatham) converted to digital August 8, 2011. The transmitter is reduced in power and viewing area has shrunk.^{[citation needed]} CIII-TV-55 Fort Erie vacated its channel frequency as of August 31, 2011. Global decided to shut down this transmitter. Coverage to the areas in Canada served by the Fort Erie transmitter are provided by CIII-DT-41 Toronto. Global plans on transitioning its remaining transmitters to digital by 2016, though all of CIII-DT's transmitters except for its Bancroft transmitter are to be converted to digital by February 2013.

Shortly after the 2011 digital transition, an additional digital subchannel (41.2) was launched, carrying the SD feed of Global Toronto also provided to cable and satellite providers, which fully duplicates the existing programming on 41.1. However (unlike other Toronto-area stations) this SD feed is not simply a letterboxed or cropped version of the HD feed, instead having different placement for promotional graphics and a separate on-screen bug (without an "HD" annotation). It is thus possible that the SD feed needs to be broadcast over-the-air in order to continue carriage of this dedicated SD feed on cable and satellite. (However, it also serves as a benefit to some over-the-air viewers with 4:3 TVs and digital converters, insofar as it allows those viewers to avoid older 4:3 programs appearing both letterboxed and pillarboxed.)

On April 10, 2012, Shaw Media applied for permission to change CIII-DT-6's channel from VHF 6 to UHF 14, switching from circular to elliptical polarization, citing the VHF-Low band's impulse noise (compared to the VHF-High and UHF bands) causing reception issues, which would be mostly resolved with a higher frequency.^[22] The power would be increased substantially, from 3.3 kW, to 145 kW. The application admits that it may be short-spaced to Buffalo, New York's WUTV, and Plattsburgh, New York's WPTZ-TV, both of which may be subject to (and cause) some co-channel interference on the edges of CIII-DT-6's service area. This application was approved by the CRTC on July 4, 2012.

Shaw Media had began applying for permission to convert its transmitters in Northern Ontario to digital, with CFGC-TV channel 11 in Sudbury and CFGC-TV-2 channel 2 in North Bay on June 14,^[23] and CIII-TV-12 in Sault Sainte Marie on June 22. The Application for CIII-TV-12 channel 12 in Sault Sainte Marie included switching its digital allotment from VHF 7 to UHF 15, for improved signal quality and slightly more population coverage.^[24] The application for CFGC-DT-2 requested the use of UHF 15, instead of UHF 32, as CHCH-TV-6 currently uses that frequency. The digital channel for CFGC-TV has not yet been requested. All three transmitters are to be fed via satellite.

Following the shutdown of the Radio-Canada repeater in Kitchener (CBLFT-TV-8) on UHF 17, Shaw had applied on October 10, 2012 to move its CIII-DT digital transmitter in Paris from VHF 6 to UHF 17, for vastly-improved coverage to the Kitchener area.^[25] Technical parameters included in the change would be a boost in power and slight decrease in height (4 kW at 311.3 meters on VHF 6, compared to 165 kW (average of 97 kW) at 272 meters on UHF 17). The UHF signal would have a slightly smaller range of broadcast coverage, but Shaw had admitted that areas on the fringes would still be able to receive Global programming via CIII-DT-29, CIII-DT-41 and CIII-TV-4. The application was approved by the CRTC on January 22, 2013. CIII-DT-27 can on most days be seen from as far away as Rochester, New York on channel 27.1.

Logos

1997–2006	2006–2009	2009–present

References

External links

• Global Toronto
• Canadian Communications Foundation - CIII-TV History
• Query the REC's Canadian station database for CIII-TV
• Query the REC's Canadian station database for CFGC-TV (Callsign used in Sudbury and North Bay)
• Query TV Fool's coverage map for CIII