CFSK-DT (channel 4) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's s ...

Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...

, Saskatchewan, Canada, part of the

Global Television Network The Global Television Network (more commonly called Global, or occasionally Global TV) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English language, English-language terrestrial television, terrestrial television network. It is currently Canada's se ...

Owned and operated 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 ...

by network parent

Corus Entertainment Corus Entertainment Inc. (often simply known as Corus) is a Canadian mass media and television production company. The company was founded in 1987 as Shaw Radio Ltd. as a subsidiary of Shaw Communications and was spun-off from Shaw in 1999. It h ...

, the station has studios on Robin Crescent on the northwest side of Saskatoon (near the Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport), and its transmitter is located on Agra and Settlers Ridge Roads (near Highway 41), northeast of the city.

History

The station first signed on the air on September 6, 1987, under the ownership of

Canwest Canwest Global Communications Corporation, which operated under the corporate name Canwest, was a major Canadian media conglomerate based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with its head offices at Canwest Place (now called 201 Portage). It held radio, ...

. CFSK and its sister station in Regina, CFRE-TV, were initially branded as "STV" (short for "Saskatchewan Television"). It joined the Canwest Global System in

1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

. At the time that STV went on the air, it was Saskatoon's third locally based over-the-air television station, joining a market that included CTV's CFQC and the then-operational

CBC CBC may refer to: Media * Cadena Baja California or Grupo Cadena, a radio and television broadcaster in Mexico * Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's radio and television public broadcaster ** CBC Television ** CBC Radio One ** CBC Music ** ...

affiliate, CBKST. However, technically it was Saskatoon's second fully licensed station; CBKST was licensed as a rebroadcaster of Regina's

CBKT CBKT-DT (channel 9) is a CBC Television station in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It is part of a Duopoly (broadcasting)#Canada, twinstick with Ici Radio-Canada Télé station CBKFT-DT (channel 13). The two outlets share studios with sister statio ...

. Canwest discontinued the STV branding, along with all other individual local station brandings in

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

, when the Global Television Network brand was expanded to all of Canwest's stations. One of STV's major broadcasts in its early years was the children's program '' Size Small Island'' (that show was originally broadcast on sister station

CKND-TV CKND-DT (channel 9) is a television station in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, part of the Global Television Network. The station is owned and operated by network parent Corus Entertainment, with studios on the 30th floor of 201 Portage in downtow ...

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

), which was syndicated around the world (the show's host, Helen Lumby, officially launched the mini-network's first broadcast in Saskatoon in 1987). Since the closure of CBKST in 2012, CFSK is one of only two over-the-air broadcast stations originating from Saskatoon.

News operation

CFSK-DT presently broadcasts hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with hours each weekday and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays); it is among the few Global stations (and one of the few television stations in Canada) to carry a prime time newscast during the 10 p.m. hour. On December 5, 2011, CFSK-DT debuted a three-hour newscast on weekday mornings (under Global's '' Morning News'' brand), which runs from 6 to 9 a.m. Around the same time, CFSK became the first television station in Saskatoon to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. On August 20, 2012, CFSK expanded its half-hour 10 p.m. newscast to one hour, which was retitled from ''Prime News'' to ''News Hour Final''; the addition of the morning newscast and the expansion of the prime time newscast is part of an expansion of local news programming on Global owned-and-operated stations across Canada as part of a benefits package that was included as a condition of the sale of the Global Television Network to Shaw Communications.Global News Boosts Local Programming Across the Country
, ''Broadcaster Magazine'', May 30, 2012. As of September 2023, Global Saskatoon's only newscast presented from its studios is '' Global News Morning'' from 6 to 9 a.m. ''Global News at 5'', '' Global News at 6'' and ''Global News at 10'' are presented by Lisa Dutton from the Global Winnipeg studios. The 5 p.m. newscast is a province-wide show (also seen on Global Regina), while the 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts are Saskatoon-focused. Weather reports for both Global Regina and Saskatoon are produced by meteorologist Peter Quinlan from the Saskatoon studios. ''Global News at 10'' was previously presented by Global Toronto anchors Crystal Goomansingh and Antony Robart from September 2015 until 2018. From 2018, presentation of the 10 p.m. news returned to Saskatchewan, albeit anchored from Global Regina by anchors Carlyle Fiset and Elise Darwish. The weekend editions of ''Global News at 6'' and '' Global News at 10'' are presented from the Global News Centre in Toronto by Mark Carcasole. With CFQC-DT cancelling several of its local news programming in September 2023 (replaced with provincial news programming), CFSK is the only station in Saskatoon to provide local news in the morning, late night and on weekends.

Notable former on-air staff

* Darren Dutchyshen – sports * Jay Onrait – sports

Technical information

Subchannels

Analogue-to-digital conversion

On August 15, 2011, weeks before Canadian television stations in CRTC-designated mandatory markets were slated to transition from analogue to digital broadcasts, CFSK flash cut its digital signal into operation on UHF channel 42, using

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered as digits on a receiver's ...

References

External links

Global SaskatoonCFSK-DT
at The History of Canadian Broadcasting by the Canadian Communications Foundation * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cfsk-Dt 1987 establishments in Saskatchewan Corus Entertainment FSK-DT Television channels and stations established in 1987 FSK-DT