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CTV 2 Alberta is a
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
entertainment and former educational
television channel A television channel is a terrestrial frequency or virtual number over which a television station or television network is distributed. For example, in North America, "channel 2" refers to the terrestrial or cable band of 54 to 60 MHz, with ...
in the
province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
of
Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
. Owned by the Bell Media subsidiary of
BCE Inc. BCE Inc., formerly Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., is a publicly traded Canadian holding company for Bell Canada, which includes telecommunications providers and various mass media assets under its subsidiary Bell Media Inc. Founded through a c ...
, it operates as a ''de facto''
owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
of its secondary CTV 2 television system. The channel was licensed by the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...
(CRTC) as an educational programming service for Alberta, and was formerly a public broadcaster owned by the Alberta provincial government. Following its privatization in 1995, its licence continued to require at least 60 hours of non-commercial educational programming per week along with entertainment programming more favourable to advertisers and adult viewers. In 2017, the channel officially relinquished its status as an educational broadcaster and dropped all its previous educational programming except the newsmagazine ''Alberta Primetime''. CTV 2 Alberta is also designated as a "satellite-to-cable undertaking" serving the entirety of Alberta, and is therefore carried throughout the province on cable and licensed IPTV services on each service's basic tier. It is also available on both national satellite services.


History

The channel was launched on June 30, 1973 as Access. It was owned by the Alberta Educational Communications Corporation (AECC), a
Crown corporation A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the governmen ...
of the Government of Alberta that also operated
CKUA Radio The CKUA Radio Network is a Canadian donor-funded community radio network based in Edmonton, Alberta. Originally located on the campus of the University of Alberta in Edmonton (hence the UA of the call letters), it was the first public broadcaste ...
. Prior to this point, English-language educational programs aired on
Radio-Canada The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...
's television station CBXFT in
Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
. For its first decade, Access was only available through cable, and did not broadcast over-the-air. It competed with KSPS-TV in
Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Canada ...
, a member of the American Public Broadcasting Service (
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
) that was available on cable in most of the province. On January 9, 1984, AECC was granted a licence from the CRTC for a terrestrial television station in
Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...
, CIAN-TV, to rebroadcast the Access cable feed. on December 1, 1986, AECC was granted another licence for a television station in Edmonton, CJAL-TV, to serve as a satellite of CIAN. After re-evaluating all provincial funding recipients, the Government of Alberta announced in 1993 that it would cease to directly fund Access past 1994. As a result, in 1995, Access was privatized and sold to Learning and Skills Television of Alberta Limited (LSTA), which was 60% owned by CHUM Limited. In February 2005, CHUM Limited acquired the remaining 40% interest in LSTA (and renamed it Access Media Group), giving the company 100% of its shares, including its ownership in Access. On July 12, 2006, CTVglobemedia announced that it would make a friendly takeover bid to buy CHUM Limited. Due to CTVglobemedia's plans to keep CTV and
Citytv Citytv is a Canadian television network owned by the Rogers Sports & Media subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The licence of the original Citytv station, granted the callsign of CITY-TV by the CRTC on November 25, 1971 to Cable Television Ass ...
, Rogers Communications was expected to purchase Access (along with CHUM's A-Channel stations, CKX-TV in Brandon,
Canadian Learning Television Oprah Winfrey Network, more commonly shortened to OWN, is a Canadian English language discretionary service channel owned by Corus Entertainment. The channel was launched in September 1, 1999 as Canadian Learning Television (CLT) by Learning and ...
and SexTV: The Channel) as announced on April 9, 2007, pending CRTC approval (and approval of CTVglobemedia's purchase). With the CRTC electing to force CTV to sell the Citytv stations instead, the Rogers deal was rendered void. As such, CTVglobemedia retained Access along with the A-Channel stations, CKX-TV and all of CHUM's specialty channels, and sold the Citytv stations to Rogers. The takeover transaction was finalized on June 22, 2007. The A-Channel stations were rebranded as "A" on August 11, 2008; on the same date, Access debuted a new A-styled logo and began airing programming from "A" during certain prime time hours. On June 8, 2011, it was revealed that Access would be relaunched as CTV Two Alberta on August 29, 2011, as part of a rebranding of the "A" system. On January 11, 2016, during CTV 2 Alberta's licence renewal, Bell Media (a successor to CTVglobemedia) requested that the channel no longer be classified as an educational broadcaster. The company stated that the province would be better served with both a dedicated educational broadcaster alongside a private service. Despite receiving criticism from a number of groups, most notably from Ontario educational broadcaster
TVO TVO (stylized as tvo), formerly known as TVOntario, is a publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It operates flagship station CICA-DT (channel 19) in Toron ...
, the CRTC approved the request on May 15, 2017, citing the lack of intervention from the provincial government, as well as talks between the government and British Columbia's
Knowledge Network Knowledge Network, also branded as British Columbia's Knowledge Network, is a Canadian publicly funded educational cable television network serving the province of British Columbia. It is owned by the Knowledge Network Corporation, a Crown corpo ...
to potentially launch a new publicly owned and operated educational broadcast service in Alberta. As a result, CTV 2 Alberta dropped all educational programming but continues to air the newsmagazine ''Alberta Primetime''.


Digital television

As part of Canada's transition to digital terrestrial television, broadcast television stations in Calgary and Edmonton were required to convert to digital broadcasting or sign off completely by August 31, 2011. Prior to this deadline, Access' only over-the-air transmitters were located in Calgary and Edmonton. As Access/CTV 2 was licensed as a satellite-to-cable undertaking, it was not required to offer over-the-air transmitters. Due to this, the costs of converting the two Access transmitters in Calgary and Edmonton to digital, and because the network already must be carried by cable and IPTV providers in the area as the province's designated educational broadcaster, CTV 2 shut down its over-the-air television transmitters on August 31, 2011.


Programming

As Access, the network carried a variety of educational and informative programs along with entertainment programs all of which include children's programs, documentaries, feature films, talk shows, dramas, comedies and other programs. Starting March 9, 2009, Access began cabling a province-wide news and current affairs magazine program called ''Alberta Primetime'', from the CTV/Access studios in Edmonton. Resources from CTV's
owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
s in Edmonton ( CFRN-DT) and Calgary (
CFCN-DT CFCN-DT (channel 4) is a television station in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, part of the CTV Television Network. It is owned and operated by network parent Bell Media alongside cable-exclusive CTV 2 Alberta (based in Edmonton with sister station CFRN ...
) are used to produce the program.Albertaprimetime.com
/ref> CTV 2 Alberta dropped all children's and educational programming from its schedule (including archival Access Network programming) when it ceased being licensed as an educational broadcaster in 2017. It now airs the full CTV 2 schedule with the exception of the provincial newsmagazine ''Alberta Primetime''.


See also

* CTV 2 Atlantic – a similar cable-only affiliate of CTV 2 in
Atlantic Canada Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (french: provinces de l'Atlantique), is the region of Eastern Canada comprising the provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec. The four provinces are New Brunswick, Newfoundlan ...
; formerly the Atlantic Satellite Network (ASN) and A Atlantic *
Citytv Saskatchewan Citytv Saskatchewan (formerly the Saskatchewan Communications Network, or SCN) is a Canadian English language cable television channel in the province of Saskatchewan. Headquartered in the provincial capital of Regina, the channel is owned by t ...
– a similar cable-only affiliate of
Citytv Citytv is a Canadian television network owned by the Rogers Sports & Media subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The licence of the original Citytv station, granted the callsign of CITY-TV by the CRTC on November 25, 1971 to Cable Television Ass ...
in the Canadian province of
Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...
; formerly Saskatchewan Communications Network *
The CW Plus The CW Plus is a secondary national programming service feed of The CW that is fully controlled and 75% owned by Nexstar Media Group, with Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery each owning a 12.5% stake in the network. It is intended primar ...
– an alternate feed of The CW Television Network for small and mid-size television markets in the United States, made up of privately owned digital multicast channels and cable-only affiliates, with syndicated programs supplied by the network in addition to CW network programming


References


External links


CTV 2 AlbertaCanadian Communications Foundation - CJAL-TV HistoryCanadian Communications Foundation - CIAN-TV History
{{Bell Media Television stations in Alberta CTV 2 stations Television channels and stations established in 1973 Educational television networks in Canada Former Crown corporations of Canada 1973 establishments in Alberta