CKMI-TV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = CKMI-TV
station_
station_slogan =
station_branding = Global Quebec
analog = 20 (UHF) in Quebec City
CKMI-TV-1 46 (UHF) in Montreal
CKMI-TV-2 11 (VHF) in Sherbrooke
digital = not yet on air
affiliations = Global (secondary 1982-92, sole affiliate since 1997)
founded = March 17, 1957
location = Quebec City / Montreal, Quebec
callsign_meaning =
former_affiliations = CBC (1957-97)
former_channel_numbers = 5 (VHF) (1957-1997)
owner = Canwest
licensee = Canwest Media Inc.
homepage = [http://www.canada.com/globaltv/quebec/index.html Global Quebec]

CKMI-TV is the Global Television Network owned-and-operated station in Quebec. The station is licenced to Quebec City on channel 20. The station has semi-satellites in Montreal (CKMI-TV-1, channel 46) and Sherbrooke (CKMI-TV-2, channel 11). It is owned by Canwest.

Officially, its main studio is located in Sainte-Foy, a former suburb of Quebec City which is now a part of the city. However, its main production facilities and news operations are located in a studio shared with French language network TVA on Boulevard de Maisonneuve Est in Montreal.

History

The station was founded in 1957 on VHF channel 5 as the second privately owned station in Quebec, co-owned by Télévision de Québec along with the province's first private station, CFCM-TV. Télévision de Québec was a consortium of cinema chain Famous Players and Quebec City's two privately-owned radio stations, CHRC and CKCV. It immediately became Quebec City's CBC Television affiliate, taking all English programming from CFCM. In 1964, following the opening of CBVT, CFCM disaffiliated from Radio-Canada (the French language arm of the CBC), and CKMI remained with CBC.

Télévision de Québec was nearly forced to sell its stations in 1969 due to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's (CRTC) new rules requiring radio and television stations to be 80% Canadian-owned. The largest shareholder, Famous Players, was a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Eventually, Famous Players reduced its shares to 20% by 1971, allowing Télévision de Québec to keep CKMI and CFCM. [ [http://www.broadcasting-history.ca/listings_and_histories/television/histories.php?id=125&historyID=127 Canadian Communications Foundation - Fondation Des Communications Canadiennes ] ] The company renamed itself Télé-Capitale in 1974.

For much of its history, CKMI was co-owned with CFCM, which eventually affiliated with TVA. As such, it was bought by Pathonic in 1979, and then by Télé-Metropole (which changed its name to TVA) in 1989. For many years, it was known on-air as "MI-5."

CKMI faced severe financial problems for much of its history, in large part because of the area's tiny anglophone population and subsequently poor advertising revenue. (Quebec City, unlike Montreal, is a virtually monolingual francophone city.) Its only local newscast was a five-minute update.

It began airing Global shows in the 1980s, and was subsequently picked up by Montreal's cable systems. By 1992, however, growing financial trouble forced CKMI to drop all non-CBC programming and become a de facto repeater of Montreal's CBC O&O, CBMT. It also carried CBMT's newscasts, though CKMI aired its own five-minute newscast, "Inside Quebec", before CBMT's "Newswatch" on weeknights.

Relief did not come until 1997, when TVA sold controlling interest in the station to Izzy Asper's Canwest, while retaining 49% interest. TVA and Canwest formed a joint venture that assumed ownership of CKMI and disaffiliated the station from CBC, making it a Global station. As part of the deal, CKMI moved to channel 20, while the CBC took over the channel 5 position as a rebroadcaster of CBMT. CKMI then added semi-satellites in Montreal and Sherbrooke.

The purchase of CKMI gave Canwest's stations enough coverage of Canada that shortly after the deal was closed, it rebranded all its stations as the Global Television Network. In 2002, Global bought out TVA's remaining interest in CKMI.

CKMI is not allowed to show local commercials because it is officially classified as a regional broadcaster. With almost three-fourths of Quebec's anglophone population (and with it, most English language advertising revenue) located in and around Montreal, the station has gradually shifted the focus of its operations to Montreal. While still technically licensed to Quebec City, the station now sends its signal to the Montreal transmitter first, meaning that in practice CKMI-TV-1 is the main transmitter.

CKMI's financial situation has not improved much since joining Global, though in recent years it has waged a spirited battle with CBMT for second place behind long-dominant CFCF-TV. It has been argued, that Global Quebec's poor financial performance is due to Canwest not being able to sell local advertising in Montreal. CKMI is additionally hindered by the fact that Canada's two satellite television providers, Bell TV and Star Choice, do not currently include it on their channel listings for satellite viewers in Quebec.

As part of a number of cutbacks to Global operations across the country, Canwest closed the station's Sherbrooke bureau and halved the number of employees working at the Quebec City bureau in February 2008. Sherbrooke is now covered by reporters based at the Montreal and Quebec City bureaus.

News programming

Global Quebec currently airs a 30-minute newscast at 6:00 pm ("Evening News") and a one-hour newscast at 11:00 pm ("News Final") seven days a week. The Saturday edition of "News Final", is shortened to half an hour to allow the broadcast of "Saturday Night Live".

Along with a number of other Global stations, Global Quebec introduced a Greenscreen virtual studio in 2008. The cameras, lighting and reports are remotely controlled (like other regional Global news studios) from Global's broadcast centre in Vancouver. A number of Montreal based employees were made redundant with the introduction of this technology. On a number of occasions in 2008, this has also allowed Ottawa based correspondant Hannah Thibedeau to anchor the program from outside Quebec. [ [http://blog.fagstein.com/2008/08/07/global-quebec-fake-local-news/] ]

Meteorologist Anthony Farnell is no longer based in Montreal with CKMI, and presents weather forecasts remotely for Global Quebec from the studios of Global Ontario station CIII-TV in Toronto.

Current anchors and reporters

*Montreal bureau
** Jamie Orchard
** Mike LeCouteur
** Jay Durant
** Tim Sargeant
** Michelle Jobin
** Barry Deley
** Domenic Fazioli
** Anne Leclair
** Amanda Jelowicki

*Quebec City bureau
** Caroline Plante

*Other stations
** Hannah Thibedeau (Global Ontario)
** Anthony Farnell (Global Ontario)

Former anchors and presenters

* Andrew Peplowski
* Tracy McKee
* Paul Graif
* Leslie Robinson
* Richard Dagenais

Discontinued programming

This Morning Live

After being rebranded as Global, the station aired a live two (and subsequently three) hour morning magazine programme from Montreal called "This Morning Live", hosted by Andrew Peplowski and Tracy McKee. It was aired in place of cartoons that aired on most Global stations in the morning because Quebec provincial law requires children's programming to be shown commercial-free over the air.

"This Morning Live" was last cancelled in late 2007 and the last programme was broadcast on February 27, 2008. "News Final", which had been off air due to low ratings since June 2006, but was brought back after "This Morning Live" was cancelled to help maintain the number of locally produced broadcast hours.

Global Tonight

An evening lifestyle programme that suffered poor ratings and was succeeded by "Global News @ 5:30".

QC Magazine

A weekly programme covering the week's news in Quebec City; cancelled when the Quebec City bureau was scaled down in 2007.

Previous logos

References

http://thesuburban.com/content.jsp?sid=84544469813240410354139956939&ctid=1000004&cnid=1014283

External links

* [http://www.canada.com/globaltv/quebec/index.html Global Quebec]
* [http://www.geocities.com/tvhatton/mtl-local/ckmi.html CKMI at TV Hat]
*RecnetCanada|CKMI-TV