From The TV IV

CBWT is a Canadian local station in Winnipeg, Manitoba, owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and affiliated with CBC Television. It broadcasts on analog channel 6 and has a digital channel allocation of 27 (which is not yet on air).

[edit] History

CBWT first went on the air as Winnipeg's first television station on May 31, 1954. It was to have signed on as western Canada's first TV station in 1953, but sign-on was delayed by several months, allowing CBC Television's Vancouver outlet, CBUT, to claim that distinction when it began operations on December 16 that year. CBWT began as a bilingual station, airing programs from CBC Television and the French-language Radio-Canada during its first six years of operation.

On September 30, 1956, CBWT was linked to the Trans-Canada Skyway microwave relay system, allowing Winnipeg TV viewers to watch shows from CBC Television on the same day as audiences in Toronto and Montreal. In April 1958, CBWT moved from channel 4, its original over-the-air channel in Winnipeg, to channel 3 to settle an issue over potential signal interference with Fargo/Valley City, North Dakota station KXJB-TV, which also broadcast over channel 4. On October 20, 1959, a weekly local current affairs show called Eye-To-Eye debuted on CBWT, airing on Tuesday nights from 10:15 to 11 p.m.

CBWT began broadcasting in English only on April 24, 1960 when French-language sister station CBWFT went on the air on channel 6. Later in the year, the CBC's monopoly on the Winnipeg TV dial ended when the independent CJAY-TV (now CTV owned-and-operated CKY-TV) was put on the air on November 12. In 1962, CBWT debuted a local version of the high school quiz show Reach for the Top, hosted by Bill Guest (who was also quizmaster for that show's national finals from 1969 until his death in 1985). CBWT and CBWFT switched channel positions on November 16, 1964, and CBWT expanded its signal with the installation of a new transmitter in nearby Starbuck, Manitoba. 24Hours, CBWT's original flagship supper-hour newscast and current affairs show, debuted on October 5, 1970. A semi-satellite of CBWT, CBWAT in Kenora, Ontario, originally offered a separate local news show for the Kenora area, but this ended around 1980 when local CTV affiliate CJBN-TV signed on.

Production of 24Hours was temporarily halted in the spring of 1981 by a NABET strike which affected all operations of the CBC, including those at CBWT. Two rounds of budget cuts, the first in 1984 after the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney took power and a second in December 1990, negatively affected the production of local programming at CBWT and other CBC radio and television stations. The station's long-running noon-hour newscast, News at Noon, ended in January 1985 when the CBC handed the noon hour slot on all its owned-and-operated (O&O) stations to its national midday show, Midday.

CBWT became known on-air as CBC Manitoba with CBC Television's on-air reimaging on January 1, 1986. CBWT expanded its studios and newsroom with construction of an expansion to the CBC Winnipeg facility at 541 Portage Avenue, which began operations on September 21, 1998 with the first shows to originate from the new studio. All local and regional non-news programming ended on CBWT with the budget cut round of 2000 when the program Breakaway, a show profiling various Manitoba towns, was cancelled. At the same time, 24Hours ended production and was replaced by the national/local hybrid news program Canada Now (which has since been cancelled and replaced with a local edition of CBC News at Six). Since 2002, CBWT, in line with other CBC O&Os, has used the generic CBC Television network branding on-air. On January 15, 2007, Living Winnipeg, a local version of CBC Television's Living regional lifestyles program franchise, began production on CBWT, marking the return of local and regional non-news programming to the station for the first time since 2000. Living Winnipeg, along with all other Living programs airing on CBC Television regionally, ended production at the end of the 2008-2009 season due to a new round of budget cuts by the CBC.

[edit] Current Prime-Time Schedule

[edit] External Sites

• CBC Manitoba