CHCH-TV implements major restructuring to remain on the air

From a media release:

CHCH-TV and its parent company, Channel Zero, have implemented a restructuring that will allow the channel to remain viable and for it to continue to deliver local news in the Greater Hamilton area. Channel 11 L.P., the entity that has created local news for CHCH since 2009, has in turn filed for bankruptcy effective today. CHCH is not ceasing operations or going off the air. CHCH and Channel Zero remain committed to the delivery of local news. Starting Monday, CHCH, joined by many of the familiar on-air personalities, will continue to broadcast the local news that viewers have been watching for over 60 years.

CHCH will continue to broadcast with a new format that keeps the core news broadcasts intact, but contains fewer overall hours of local news. Starting on December 12, CHCH will transition to a new schedule that includes CHCH’s popular 6pm and 11pmweekday news broadcasts, and starting Tuesday, Morning Live will return. In addition to the familiar faces, viewers can expect to see the same high quality local news programming that CHCH has delivered to the region for over 60 years.

CHCH will continue to exceed the CRTC local broadcasting requirements as part of its commitment to its license and the Region. Furthermore, CHCH and its parent company, Channel Zero, are financially unaffected by this filing. Channel Zero looks forward to participating in the CRTC’s upcoming hearing on the policy framework for local and community television programming in the New Year.

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One thought on “CHCH-TV implements major restructuring to remain on the air”

  1. Sorry to learn of this and good luck for the future. Roman Whoozits (never got his last name straight) and I were awarded cable channel licenses at the same time. He launched the Moviola Channel and subsequently Zero, etc., and my license was for The Global Village Theatre Channel. They later picked up CHCH which was given away by CTV since it was a drain and didn’t fit their plans. My plans for original programming would have been double or triple CRTC needs but I looked at the market and saw that Canada could not support a quality channel running nothing but original programming. I incorporated in Delaware in the hope of getting sufficient pickup in the U.S. to concurrently launch in both countries. U.S. cable operators were not interested in a channel that focused on theatrical programming and so I let the license expire rather than add another marginal, under-funded broadcast entity that needs to run a surfeit of reruns or go bankrupt. Canada is a rough ad market and has always been that. Jack Kent Cooke struggled for over 20 years with radio stations and by ’61 he was a millionaire. After selling out in Canada for $15 million, he moved to the U.S. where in a very short time he became a billionaire.

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