| Callsign: | CJOH-DT |
| City: | Ottawa, Ontario |
| Digital: | 16 (UHF) |
| Virtual: | 13 |
| Affiliations: | CTV |
| Country: | Canada |
| Callsign Meaning: | CJ Ottawa & Hull, Quebec |
| Former Callsigns: | CJOH-TV (1961–2011) |
| Owner: | Bell Media Inc. |
| Sister Stations: | CHRO-TV, CFGO, CFRA, CJMJ-FM, CKKL-FM |
| Former Affiliations: | Independent (March–September 1961) |
| Erp: | 54 kW |
| Haat: | 423.40NaN0 |
| Licensing Authority: | CRTC |
CJOH-DT (channel 13) is a television station in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, serving the National Capital Region as part of the CTV Television Network. It is owned and operated by network parent Bell Media alongside Pembroke-licensed CTV 2 outlet CHRO-TV (channel 5). The two stations share studios with Bell's Ottawa radio properties at the Market Media Mall building on George Street in downtown Ottawa's ByWard Market; CJOH-DT's transmitter is located on the Ryan Tower at Camp Fortune in Chelsea, Quebec, north of Gatineau.
Founded by Ernie Bushnell, CJOH signed on for the first time on March 12, 1961. Initially, studio facilities were located at 29 Bayswater Avenue (45.4067°N -75.7204°W) until that September when operations were shifted over several weeks to a $2 million complex at 1500 Merivale.[1]
It acquired former Cornwall-based CBC affiliate CJSS-TV as a rebroadcaster in 1963, making CJSS the first television station in Canada to cease operations. The channel 6 transmitter in Deseronto became operational in 1972 to serve the Kingston and Belleville markets. Standard Broadcasting owned the station from 1975 to 1987; that year, after a CRTC decision authorized Baton Broadcasting to launch a new independent station in Ottawa,[2] Standard responded to the potential new competition by selling CJOH to Baton, who then surrendered the new independent licence.[3] Baton was renamed CTV Inc. in 1998 after gaining control of the CTV network the preceding year. CTV in turn would be purchased by Bell Canada and folded into Bell Globemedia, now Bell Media, in 2001.
On August 1, 1995, the station's longtime sports anchor Brian Smith was shot in the station's parking lot by Jeffrey Arenburg, a released mental patient with a history of threatening media personalities, who claimed the station was broadcasting messages inside his head. Smith died in hospital the following day.[4] The incident led to renewed calls across Canada for strengthening of the Canadian government's gun control legislation and provided the impetus for Brian's Law (Ontario Bill 68) – an amendment of the Mental Health Act and Health Care Consent Act which introduced community treatment orders and new criteria for involuntary commitment to psychiatric facilities.[5] Arenburg was released from a mental hospital in Penetanguishene in 2006, then imprisoned for two years for assaulting a U.S. border guard in 2008.[6]
On August 28, 1996, BBS Ontario Incorporated received CRTC approval to add a new analog transmitter on UHF channel 47 at Pembroke, Ontario, to rebroadcast programming of CJOH-TV. CHRO-TV was also approved to disaffiliate from the CTV Television Network that same day.[7]
The newsroom was destroyed by a four-alarm fire during the early morning hours of February 7, 2010, destroying equipment and the news archives. The building itself remained intact until it was demolished by the end of December 2011. An adjacent office building housing former sister station CKQB-FM was not affected by the fire.[8] [9]
CJOH's news operations were permanently relocated to CTV's ByWard Market building. This would be the first time the ByWard Market studios would have an evening newscast since the cancellation of sister station CHRO-TV's A News in March 2009.
See main article: List of programs broadcast by CTV and CTV 2.
With the exception of networked shows Your Morning (along with its predecessor Canada AM) and Question Period, none of these programs are available in high definition.
CJOH-DT presently broadcasts 20½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 3½ hours each weekday and 1½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in lieu of a local morning newscast (which instead airs on sister station CHRO), CJOH displays local news headlines on a news ticker during its broadcast of CTV's semi-national morning program Your Morning (previously Canada AM).
Local newscasts (under the name CTV News) are aired weekdays at noon, 6 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.[14] The newscasts were previously called Midday Newsline/Newsline/Nightline (depending on the time of day) from the 1970s until 1998, and CJOH News from 1998 to 2005. (In 1982, the 6 p.m. newscast Newsline became, for a brief time, Canada's first 90-minute local supper hour newscast.) From December 10, 2011, to autumn 2012, the noon and 6 p.m. broadcasts broadcast for one hour, though the Sunday evening 6 p.m. broadcast remained a half-hour program.[15] Since April 2012, the audio feed of CJOH's 6 p.m. newscast is simulcast on sister radio station CFRA. The Sunday 6 p.m. newscast expanded to one hour in the fall of 2012.On July 7, 2014, the station unveiled a new studio to accompany the transition to high definition news production. On August 28, 2017, CJOH launched a new hour of local news content titled CTV News at 5, part of expanded local newscasts announced in June of that year.[16]
On August 31, 2011, when Canadian television stations in CRTC-designated mandatory markets transitioned from analogue to digital broadcasts,[18] the station flash cut its digital signal into operation on VHF channel 13. The station's news operations completed upgrades to high definition capabilities, and the first HD news broadcast took place on July 7, 2014, starting with the noon hour newscast.
As part of the CRTC/FCC spectrum reallocation, CJOH-DT was assigned channel 7 as its new frequency, but instead requested channel 16 (which should have gone to Deseronto) for its new frequency. This was given CRTC approval in March 2020.[19] BellMedia was scheduled to carry out the move to channel 16 around July 3, 2020[20] marking the end of all VHF TV broadcasting in Ottawa.
A long list of CTV rebroadcasters nationwide were to shut down on or before August 31, 2009, as part of a political dispute with Canadian authorities on paid fee-for-carriage requirements for cable television operators.[21] [22]
On June 27, 2016, it was announced that Bell Media filed a proposal with the CRTC to shut down 40 of its television transmitters (all rebroadcasters of other stations), due to maintenance costs, high cable and satellite viewership, and no generation of revenue. Among the victims was the former CJSS-TV 8 Cornwall, the first station to rebroadcast CJOH-TV (since 1963).[23]
On July 30, 2019, Bell Media was granted permission to close down CJOH-TV-6 (Deseronto) and CJOH-TV-47 (Pembroke) as part of Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2019-268. CJOH-TV-47 was shut down as of May 2, 2020, and CJOH-TV-6 was shut down on October 9 of the same year.[24]