CBC Television


CBC Television is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952, with its main studios at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto. Its French-language counterpart is Ici Radio-Canada Télé.
CBC Television is available throughout Canada on over-the-air television stations in urban centres, and as a must-carry station on cable and satellite television providers, and live streamed on its CBC Gem video platform.

Overview

CBC Television provides a complete 24-hour network schedule of news, sports, entertainment, and children's programming; in most cases, it feeds the same programming at the exact local times nationwide, except to the Newfoundland Time Zone, where programs air 30 minutes "late".
On October 9, 2006, at 6:00 a.m., the network switched to a 24-hour schedule, becoming one of the last major English-language broadcasters to transition to such a schedule. Most CBC-owned stations previously signed off the air during the early morning.
Instead of the infomercials aired by most private stations, or a simulcast of CBC News Network in the style of BBC One's nightly simulcast of BBC News Channel, the CBC uses the time to air repeats, including local news, primetime series, films and other programming from the CBC library.
Its French counterpart, ICI Radio-Canada Télé, which continued to sign off every night for some years, now broadcasts a simulcast of its sister news network Ici RDI after regular programming ends for the night until the next programming day begins.
While historically there has been room for regional differences in the schedule, as there is today, for CBC-owned stations, funding has decreased to the point that most of these stations no longer broadcast any significant local programming beyond local newscasts and an edition of the summer regional documentary series Absolutely Canadian.
Until 1998, the network carried a variety of American programs in addition to its core Canadian programming, directly competing with private Canadian broadcasters such as CTV, Citytv and Global. Since then, it has restricted itself to Canadian programs, a handful of British programs, and a few American films and off-network repeats. Since this change, the CBC has sometimes struggled to maintain ratings comparable to those it achieved before 1995, although it has seen somewhat of a ratings resurgence in recent years. In the 2007–08 season, popular series such as Little Mosque on the Prairie and The Border helped the network achieve its strongest ratings performance in over half a decade.
In 2002, CBC Television and CBC News Network became the first broadcasters in Canada that are required to provide closed captioning for all of their programming. On those networks, only outside commercials need not be captioned, though most of them are aired with captions. All shows, bumpers, billboards, promos and other internal programming must be captioned. The requirement stems from a human rights complaint filed by deaf lawyer Henry Vlug, which was settled in 2002.
In 2018, Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade aired their last Canadian Broadcast on CBC and simsubbing from ABC via Cable and Satellite.

Programming

News and current affairs

The CBC's flagship newscast, The National, airs Sunday through Fridays at 10:00 p.m. local time and Saturdays at 6:00 p.m. EST. Until October 2006, CBC owned-and-operated stations aired a second broadcast of the program at 11:00 p.m.; This later broadcast included only the main news portion of the program, and excluded the analysis and documentary segment. This second airing was later replaced with other programming, and as of the 2012-13 television season, was replaced on CBC's major market stations by a half-hour late newscast. There is also a short news update, at most, on late Saturday evenings. During hockey season, this update is usually found during the first intermission of the second game of the doubleheader on Hockey Night in Canada.
The show also simultaneously broadcasts rolling coverage from CBC News Network from noon to 1 p.m. local time in most time zones.
In addition to the mentioned late local newscasts, CBC stations in most markets fill early evenings with local news programs, generally from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., while most stations also air a single local newscast on weekend evenings. Weekly newsmagazine The Fifth Estate is also a CBC mainstay, as are documentary series such as Doc Zone.

Sports

One of the most popular shows on CBC Television is the weekly Saturday night broadcast of NHL hockey games, Hockey Night in Canada. It has been televised by the network since 1952. During the NHL lock-out and subsequent cancellation of the 2004–05 hockey season, the CBC instead aired various recent and classic films, branded as Movie Night in Canada, on Saturday nights. Many cultural groups criticized this and suggested the CBC air games from minor hockey leagues; the CBC responded that most such broadcast rights were already held by other groups, but it did base each Movie Night broadcast from a different Canadian hockey venue. Other than hockey, CBC Sports properties included Toronto Raptors basketball, Toronto FC soccer, and various other amateur and professional events.
The telecast of the Olympics including the Summer and Winter Olympic Games on Canadian television on CBC's broadcast started in 1956. It has the rights to broadcast the Olympic Games until 2032.
It was also the exclusive carrier of Canadian Curling Association events during the 2004–05 season. Due to disappointing results and fan outrage over many draws being carried on CBC Country Canada, the association tried to cancel its multiyear deal with the CBC signed in 2004. After the CBC threatened legal action, both sides eventually came to an agreement under which early-round rights reverted to TSN. On June 15, 2006, the CCA announced that TSN would obtain exclusive rights to curling broadcasts in Canada as of the 2008–09 season, shutting the CBC out of the championship weekend for the first time in 40-plus years.
CBC Sports suffered another major blow when it was announced that after the 2007 season, the CFL regular season games and the Grey Cup would be moving to TSN, ending the CBC's tenure with the CFL. It has been stated that the CFL was not happy with the CBC's lacklustre production during the CBC's 2005 union lock-out, which forced the network to use CBC management to work the behind-the-scenes telecast and use stadium public address announcers in place of their regular announcer crew.
On June 23, 2007, the network aired the first game in a two-year deal to broadcast Toronto Blue Jays games; the contract ended at the end of the 2008 season, and was not renewed.
In August 2007, it was also announced that the CBC would broadcast National Basketball Association games involving the Toronto Raptors, starting with the 2007–08 NBA season, through at least 2009–10; the CBC would carry 10 games for the 2007–08 and 20 games for the 2008–09 and 2009–10 seasons.
In November 2013, the CBC lost its rights to the NHL to Rogers Communications, under a 12-year deal beginning in the 2014–15 NHL season. The CBC concurrently announced a sub-licensing agreement with Rogers, under which it would supply Sportsnet-produced Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts to CBC Television at no charge; all advertising during the broadcasts would be sold by Rogers, but the CBC would be provided with advertising time for its own programs. Officially, the broadcasts are carried by a CRTC-licensed part-time network operated by Rogers and affiliated with all CBC Television stations. This was required to formally assign responsibility for the broadcasts to Rogers; on-air, the telecasts otherwise use CBC branding and continuity.
As a result of funding reductions from the federal government and decreased revenues, in April 2014, the CBC announced it would no longer bid for professional sport broadcasting rights.

Entertainment

Among CBC Television's best-known primetime series are comedy series Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Little Mosque on the Prairie, and dramas such as The Tudors, Heartland and Intelligence. In recent years, British series such as Coronation Street and Doctor Who have been given greater prominence. As noted above, it now carries very little American programming apart from some syndicated daytime shows.
In 2006, the CBC announced radical changes to its primetime line-up, including the following new series to premiere that fall:
  • Dragons' Den
  • Intelligence
  • Rumours
  • Underdogs
  • Jozi-H
  • The One: Making a Music Star
  • 72 Hours: True Crime
  • Repeats of The Hour on the main CBC network, from 2005 to 2014.
Many were surprised by these changes to the CBC schedule, which were apparently intended to attract a younger audience to the network; some suggested they might alienate the core CBC viewership. Another note of criticism was made when the network decided to move The National in some time zones to simulcast the American version of The One over the summer. This later became a moot point, as The One was taken off the air after two weeks after extremely low American and Canadian ratings, and the newscast resumed its regular schedule.
In 2006, daytime programming was also revamped. While there were still repeats of CBC and foreign series, new talk shows such as The Gill Deacon Show and the regional franchise Living were aired. The Gill Deacon Show was cancelled after just seven months, and replaced with another talk show, Steven and Chris from 2008 to 2015 ; Living was cancelled in August 2009.
On January 9, 2007, the CBC began airing a highly publicized new series called Little Mosque on the Prairie, a comedy about a Muslim family living in rural Saskatchewan. The series garnered strong ratings as well as international media attention, for most of its five-year run. It was also announced that Martha Stewart's daytime show would be added to the CBC daytime line-up, with the nighttime Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! following in September 2008.
In January 2008, CBC Television launched the drama series The Border, MVP and jPod, the reality series The Week The Women Went and the comedy Sophie from 2008 to 2009. Only The Border and Sophie were renewed for a second season in the fall of 2008. The new series Being Erica and the short-lived Wild Roses began airing in January 2009.
Beginning in 2005, the CBC has contributed production funds for the BBC Wales revival of Doctor Who, for which it received a special credit at the end of each episode. This arrangement continued until the end of fourth season, broadcast in 2008. The CBC similarly contributed to the first season of the spin-off series, Torchwood. More recently, the network has also begun picking up Canadian rights to some Australian series, including the drama series Janet King and Love Child, and the comedy-drama series Please Like Me.
In 2015, CBC Television premiered Dan and Eugene Levy's sitcom Schitt's Creek; the series began to achieve critical acclaim after it was acquired by the streaming service Netflix, and swept all seven comedy awards at the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards—becoming the first comedy or drama to sweep all seven major awards in their respective genre at the ceremony.