CBAT-TV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = CBAT-TV
station_
station_slogan = Canada's Own
station_branding = "CBC Television"
analog = 4 (VHF)
digital = no
affiliations = CBC
founded = 1954
location = Saint John/Fredericton, New Brunswick
callsign_meaning = CBC
Atlantic
Television
owner = CBC
former_callsigns = CHSJ-TV (1954-94)
former_affiliations = None
effective_radiated_power =
homepage = [http://www.cbc.ca/nb CBC New Brunswick]

CBAT-TV is the call sign for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) television station in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The station's main transmitter is on Mount Champlain near Saint John (where the station is licenced, broadcasting terrestrially on channel 4.

For the station's entire existence, it has broadcast CBC programming. It first went on the air on March 22, 1954 as CHSJ-TV, owned by the New Brunswick Broadcasting Co. and located in Saint John. Its network of rebroadcasters was built up between 1961 and 1978.

CBC bought the station in 1994, recalled it as CBAT, and relocated its studios to Fredericton. New Brunswick was the last province without an owned-and-operated CBC station; although CBC's Fredericton and Moncton studios produced programming for CHSJ as early as the 1970s. CHSJ's pre-emptions of large blocks of CBC programming, forcing an entire province to miss several of CBC's most well-known shows, was the subject of complaints to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which mandated that CHSJ clear the minimum block of CBC programming in 1988.

The flagship 6:00 p.m. newscast has been broadcast from Fredericton since the 1980s, first as the "CBC News for New Brunswick", then later as "NB Now" until the national restructuring of CBC local news led to the creation of "Canada Now" (now called "CBC News at Six"). The current local anchor on CBAT is Todd Battis. Past anchors have included Andy Wilson, Terry Seguin, Carole MacNeil, Geoff Britt, and Anita Sharma. Weathercaster Rose Arseneault was popular with viewers until she lost her job due to budget cutbacks in 2000. The weather forecast is now done by meteorologist Peter Coade via Satellite from CBC Halifax.

In 2003 CBAT made a controversial programming decision by pre-empting CBC's broadcast of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals in order to carry live returns from a provincial election.

For reasons unknown, despite there being no radio station using "CBAT", and the CBC's preference for television call signs that do not use the "-TV" suffix, the Fredericton station is listed in [http://sd.ic.gc.ca/ Industry Canada's database] as "CBAT-TV", not "CBAT".

Coverage

The station is also carried on cable across the border in Maine, particularly in the cities of Presque Isle, Bangor and Houlton, Maine, as well as in Washington County, Maine.

Transmitters of the station are shown below, with stations in bold as semi-satellites.

Logos

External links

* [http://www.cbc.ca/nb CBC New Brunswick]
*