Canadian TV in the US

[N_D_Radioguy]

P.S.: This year's Grey Cup will be held at the "Big O" in Montreal.

Aren't they still paying off Le Stad Olympique?

The '76 Games were supposed to be such a huge economic windfall for Montreal.

Guess nobody paid attention to Ciudad de Mexico in '68.

 

[bk77]

Canada and Australia have a unique advantage. Both can take the best [or most popular] of American AND British programming. Both are also large enough and rich enough to develop quality programming on their own. Americans may not get to see as much from those countries are they do from ours, but when something Canadian or Australian breaks into the U.S. market, it's almost always top-notch.

Also outside of the US, Canada and Australia are the only two countries to have newscasts using the name "Eyewitness News". Some of those newscasts from down under if it wasn't for the accents they could easily pass off as a local American newscast.

Last time I was in Buffalo, NY ( 1994 ) their local cable system offered both CBC and CTV out of Toronto as well as CHCH channel 11 out of Hamilton, complete with commericals. Not sure its still that way now though.

 

[mimo]

Name our Capital City? How many provinces do we have? How many territories do we have? What is our ONLY bilingual province? (That one's not as easy as you'd think) And a tough one, who's been playing football (not soccer) longer?

Capital: Ottawa

Provinces: 10 - British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador (commonly known as just Newfoundland).

Territories: 3 - Yukon, Northwest, Nunavut. The latter was officially established in 1999; I watched the ceremony, which was carried in the US on PBS.

Bilingual province: All are at least bilingual, as the nation is bilingual, but the only province officially declared bilingual is not Quebec, but New Brunswick. (As seen on its license plate (or licence plate, if you prefer).)

Football: Obviously Canada, as you would not have asked the question otherwise.

You forgot to mention that the QEW is the oldest freeway in North America.
Or that Saskatchewan is the only province that does not observe Daylight Saving Time.
Or that the Newfoundland Time Zone is the only 1/2-hour time zone in North America.

Absolutely right on all questions. Football question is technically a trick question as MOST encyclopedias and books say that the first game took place in the united states featuring 2 Canadian University teams..so logic would assume that it had been played in Canada before...As far as officially Bilingual, it's New Brunswick. Quebec is French only as far as government policy goes, every other province is officially English but must be able to provide services in both official languages.

 

[w9wi]

In fact, most CTV and Global stations keep their towers as far away from the border as possible. That's so the signal can cover Canada without crossing into the U.S.

Most CTV and Global stations transmit from the same sites as the CBC stations.

 

[CrankyYankee]

The CBC show "Little Mosque on the Praire", according to Wikipedia, will soon be airing in about nine other countries. (But not the U.S.) Although as it has been pointed out, border towns and cities near Canada can receive the program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_mosque_on_the_prairie

 

[jegrant]

At one point, I read that there was substantial US interest to either license this show, or license the rights and make a US version - so what's up? Too politically touchy of a subject?

 

[mleach]

CTV and Global are heavy on U.S. shows, thus those 2 nets are subject to network non-duplication as well as syndex.

In fact, most CTV and Global stations keep their towers as far away from the border as possible. That's so the signal can cover Canada without crossing into the U.S.

I believe Global has a translator in Fort Erie, ON which is directly across the bridge from Buffalo, New York. Now whether or not the signal can be picked up in Buffalo, I am not sure. Something tells me it isn't.

Now Toronto's City TV, they do on purpose keep their signal away from the US and they have done so for years. I have heard the reason for them doing that ( back in the 70's and 80's ) was due to City's airing of soft core porn at night ( Blue Movies? ) and such programming can't be seen in the states OTA.

 

[fybush]

CTV and Global are heavy on U.S. shows, thus those 2 nets are subject to network non-duplication as well as syndex.

In fact, most CTV and Global stations keep their towers as far away from the border as possible. That's so the signal can cover Canada without crossing into the U.S.

I believe Global has a translator in Fort Erie, ON which is directly across the bridge from Buffalo, New York. Now whether or not the signal can be picked up in Buffalo, I am not sure. Something tells me it isn't.

Now Toronto's City TV, they do on purpose keep their signal away from the US and they have done so for years. I have heard the reason for them doing that ( back in the 70's and 80's ) was due to City's airing of soft core porn at night ( Blue Movies? ) and such programming can't be seen in the states OTA.

The Fort Erie Global signal on 55 is very low-power, with a directional antenna that keeps most of the signal on the Canadian side of the border. It's not easily viewable in the US without a good antenna. I would expect most people in the Buffalo area have an easier time seeing the powerful channel 41 signal from the CN tower, if they really want to see Global.

As for City, they're not deliberately keeping the signal away from the US - they just don't run much power over-the-air, and never have. If I remember right, they signed on with just a few hundred watts on channel 79, with a signal designed to hit the Toronto cable headend and not much else. There was a thriving business in Rochester and Buffalo selling high-gain antennas aimed at Toronto to watch the blue movies on 79. The power increased a bit when they went to 57, but it's still much lower than the other Toronto Us and has always been a tough catch on the US side.

 

[azumanga]

CBC Windsor (officially CBET) is considered a foreign station by the FCC. For that reason DirecTV and Dish Network do not carry CBC Windsor with Detroit locals.

Then why are they're carrying Tijuana's XETV? Yes, they are a Fox affiliate for San Diego (until August, at least), though they are technically a foreign station, like CBET.

 

[mjlarochelle]

CBC Windsor (officially CBET) is considered a foreign station by the FCC. For that reason DirecTV and Dish Network do not carry CBC Windsor with Detroit locals.

Then why are they're carrying Tijuana's XETV? Yes, they are a Fox affiliate for San Diego (until August, at least), though they are technically a foreign station, like CBET.

Probably customer demand more than anything. Customers would be pretty irate if they couldn't get FOX. There was likely a time that there was much higher demand for CBET, when it was CKLW and owned by RKO General. CKLW showed a lot of movies and popular shows in addition to the minimum required CBC schedule. Once RKO was forced to sell the station because of Canadian rules on foreign ownership, things changed.

 

[bpatrick]

A couple of observations:

Since CBET is considered a foreign station,
that took it out of the running as the new
Detroit CBS affiliate when WJBK became a
Fox o&o. And CBET sits on very viewable
Channel 9, far better than that excuse you
folks in Detroit have for CBS--WWJ/62.

Also, I rather miss Newsworld International.
I've watched Peter Mansbridge there, and it
was a shame he turned down a chance to
come to CBS (he admitted that he's Toronto
to the core and didn't think he'd be comfortable
in New York).

Canada has turned out some top-notch journalists
that made a mark on U.S. TV: Peter Jennings, Morley
Safer, and the man who ought to be CBS's anchor
right now--John Roberts.

 

[w9wi]

Since CBET is considered a foreign station,
that took it out of the running as the new
Detroit CBS affiliate when WJBK became a
Fox o&o.

I don't think that's what took it out of the running. (Fox has had no problems affiliating with Mexican stations, and ABC has had a Mexican affiliate in the past)

However, I would be VERY VERY VERY surprised if the CBC would consider leaving a populated swath of Ontario unserved by affiliating one of their O&O stations with a U.S. network!

 

[azumanga]

Since CBET is considered a foreign station,
that took it out of the running as the new
Detroit CBS affiliate when WJBK became a
Fox o&o.

I would be VERY VERY VERY surprised if the CBC would consider leaving a populated swath of Ontario unserved by affiliating one of their O&O stations with a U.S. network!

Considering the CRTC's stance on Canadian programming, I would think it would be impossible for a Canadian station to affiliate with an American network, never mind that many Canadian stations are now ersatz "affiliates" of American networks, thanks to simsubs.

Another solution would've been for CBET and WWJ to swap channels, with WWJ on 9 and CBET on 62. But in order for that to happen, the FCC, CRTC and Industry Canada would had to intervene, and that would've been too much red tape.

 

[bpatrick]

You're both probably right, but for a long time
the FCC didn't consider Fox a network since it
didn't program the minimum 15 hours a week the
FCC requires. So Fox ended up with "X" stations
in places like Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo as
well as Tijuana. And ABC lost XETV as its San
Diego affiliate in 1972 because the FCC ruled that
the networks couldn't have affiliates
located outside the U.S. (so why did they make
an exception for Hamilton, Bermuda?) or its territories.

But I will concede that the CBC wouldn't give up the
populous Detroit-Windsor area. Don't a lot of Detroit
viewers watch CBS on WTOL anyway?

 

[w9wi]

You're both probably right, but for a long time
the FCC didn't consider Fox a network since it
didn't program the minimum 15 hours a week the
FCC requires. So Fox ended up with "X" stations
in places like Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo as
well as Tijuana. And ABC lost XETV as its San
Diego affiliate in 1972 because the FCC ruled that
the networks couldn't have affiliates
located outside the U.S. (so why did they make
an exception for Hamilton, Bermuda?) or its territories.

It's not really prohibited that way...

I'm working from memory here (because my copy of the rules is 300 miles away) but as I recall if a network has no affiliate in a city that has a U.S. station not affiliated with any network, they must offer their programming to that station. XETV lost ABC because the station now known as KNSD (I forget their calls then) asked for the affiliation.

Since there are no U.S. stations in Bermuda ( ) there's no problem there. Even if Fox was officially a network, they wouldn't have a problem with their Mexican affiliates across from South Texas as there are no unaffiliated stations on the U.S. side of the border.

 

[bpatrick]

KNSD was KCST then. They later
lost ABC to KGTV when ABC was
picking off affiliates from the other
networks (especially NBC) seemingly
every few weeks.

You're right, though. Channel 39's
owners thought it inappropriate that
ABC had an affiliate across the border
when there was an unaffiliated station
in San Diego. They did indeed ask for
the ABC affiliation, but the wording of
the FCC's decision made it sound like
the change was forced (which is the
way everything I've ever read about it
makes it sound). Unhappy with Channel
39 instead of Channel 6 as its San Diego
affiliate, ABC apparently jumped at the
chance to go to Channel 10 in 1977.

At any rate Fox is dropping XETV later this
summer for a UHF in San Diego. I won't
challenge you about the ones on the Mexican
side of the border that serve South Texas,
because I was not aware that it's perfectly
legal.

 

[azumanga]

At any rate Fox is dropping XETV later this summer for a UHF in San Diego.

Though XETV is taking the matter to court, mainly due to the fact that Fox is reneging on its contract with XETV, in which the station has the affiliation through 2010.

I won't challenge you about the ones on the Mexican side of the border that serve South Texas, because I was not aware that it's perfectly legal.

The one in Laredo, now XHLAR, has flipped to Televisa programming a couple of years back. Laredo didn't get another local Fox station until KXOF-CA opened late last year. There's only one other Mexican Fox station remaining --XHRIO in the Rio Grande Valley, and they became Fox a couple of years back, after a Televisa-owned station flipped to XEW's programming.