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CJON-DT (channel 21), branded on-air as NTV (short for Newfoundland Television), is an independent television station in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, owned by Newfoundland Broadcasting Company Ltd. The station's studios are located on Logy Bay Road in St. John's, and its transmitter is located in the city's Shea Heights section.
In any event, the CBC launched CBNT in 1964, and CJON became an affiliate of the new CTV network. During the mid-1970s, it was known as "NBC", for the "Newfoundland Broadcasting Company", until 1978 when WLBZ-TV, the Bangor affiliate of the U.S.-based National Broadcasting Company, became available on cable (to be replaced later by WDIV-TV from Detroit, then WHDH from Boston and eventually WBTS-LD/WBTS-CD also from Boston). To avoid confusion, CJON was rebranded as "NTV", although as late as August 1978, the Newfoundland Herald's TV listings continued to refer to NTV as NBC, including listing the local newscasts under the title NBC News. Newfoundland Herald TV Week, week of August 19–25, 1978
In 1972, CJON became one of the first television stations in Canada, if not the first, to broadcast around the clock every night (see "Overnight programming", below). In 1977, Stirling and Jamieson unwound their partnership, with Jamieson taking the AM radio stations, with CJON radio being renamed CJYQ. In later years, many of the AM stations were eventually sold, and in several cases shut down. Stirling kept NTV and the newly launched station CHOZ-FM. 1983 saw CJON and CHOZ's operations move to their present building on Logy Bay Road, with a new transmitter on the South Side Hills.
During this period, and indeed well before, NTV consistently aired hours of prime time programming each night, a great deal of them being American imports, from 8 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. NT (11 p.m. ET), as opposed to the North American norm of three hours. In fact, in 1995–96, first-run prime time programming began at 7:30 p.m. and ran until 12:30 a.m. Although the net result was less than the mandated 50% Canadian content between 6 p.m. and midnight, this was not deemed to violate Cancon regulations as CTV National News did not feed an 11 p.m. AT edition until 1998, although the practice was maintained without CRTC complaint until disaffiliation in 2002.
As of fall 2002, NTV lost access to most CTV programming, but maintained rights to CTV National News, Canada AM, and other CTV news programming free of charge, on the condition that it continue to provide coverage of Newfoundland and Labrador events for CTV and CTV News Channel. Additionally, it purchased rights to additional CTV programming, such as Desperate Housewives, on an individual, per-season basis ( Desperate Housewives aired on NTV in its first season but not afterward, and currently no CTV entertainment programming appears regularly on NTV; until 2006, some other CTV-owned properties such as the Academy Awards and the continued to air on NTV, but all have recently been dropped, although the Juno Awards have since reappeared on NTV as of 2009).
Most of NTV's entertainment programming since 2002 has been received via to a program supply agreement with the Global Television Network; for example, Survivor, Family Guy, and The Young and the Restless. NTV's last public comment on the arrangement, at a CRTC hearing in 2002, was to the effect that it would expire at the end of the 2005–2006 season. However, with the addition of new Global programs to the NTV schedule during the spring and summer of 2006, all indications are that the agreement has been extended.
Unlike most Canadian stations, which fill essentially all of their unsold commercial airtime with program promotions or public service announcements, NTV frequently uses minute-long clips of , usually at the end of a commercial break, in addition to its promos and PSAs. Due to licensing issues, video usage has recently been relaxed, at least during parts of the regular broadcast day, with the addition of high-rotation news and weather updates of up to two minutes duration. However, music videos remain common during the overnight hours.
On Saturdays, the channel shows a two-hour block of Freeform radio under the banner of Captain Atlantis Late Night. This block usually consists of speeches and interviews involving Stirling or longtime Newfoundland Premier Joey Smallwood, but has also included content such as American patriotic montages, recut Elvis Presley television specials, holiday movies and specials, and miscellanea. As of 2021, Captain Atlantis (named after an ancient alien astronaut character Stirling created) airs in the early Saturday graveyard slot, and on Saturday mornings.
It has frequently been promoted as "the award-winning NTV Evening Newshour", in reference to a RTNDA Canada "Best Newscast – Medium Market" award from 1998 (for a newscast aired in 1997), and several other awards for individual reports received since. Overall, CBNT has won more RTNDA and AJA awards over the same period, and is the most recent area station to have won an RTNDA Best Newscast award, winning in 2009.
Repackaged versions of the Newshour air at midnight and at 6 a.m. the following day. NTV Newsday, a live newscast that airs weekdays at noon, frequently also relies on content from the previous night's Newshour. NTV's newscasts are also seen on at least one television station in the United States—WZRA-CD (channel 48), an ethnic station in Tampa, Florida, has regularly carried NTV's newscasts as well as select CTV programming. In fact, NTV's website promotes the fact that NTV advertisers can reach Tampa viewers through WZRA, although the station's signal is only received well in northwestern parts of Tampa (WZRA is licensed to Oldsmar, Florida, a northwestern suburb of Tampa).
| +Subchannels of CJON-DT ! scope = "col" | Channel ! scope = "col" | Res. ! scope = "col" | Aspect ! scope = "col" | Short name ! scope = "col" | Programming |
The station's transmitters in Swift Current ( CJSC-TV channel 10), Glenwood ( CHSG-TV channel 7), and St. Alban's ( CJST-TV channel 13) were shut down as of December 31, 2006; Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2007–11, February 1, 2007. transmitters in Bay Bulls ( CJON-TV-4 channel 10) and Lawn ( CJLN-TV channel 10) were shut down as of November 2011. Broadcasting Information Bulletin CRTC 2012-109, February 20, 2012.
On November 30, 2012, transmitters at Red Rocks ( CJRR-TV channel 11) and Stephenville ( CJSV-TV channel 4) were shut down; the station cited the age of the towers and the costs of the upkeep. The station also announced that their transmitter network would eventually close down in the coming years, due to the high cost of upkeep. The Gulf News: "OZ FM, NTV to stop broadcasting from Red Rocks", November 26, 2012. Deleted concurrently with CJRR and CJSV was the transmitter at Grand Bank ( CJOX-TV-1 channel 2), which left the air in September 2012 following the failure of its transmitter; NTV also chose to close CJOX-1 instead of repairing it.
On July 31, 2013, the remaining over-the-air retransmitters of NTV in Corner Brook, Deer Lake, Norris Arm, Bonavista, Clarenville, Argentia, and Marystown were discontinued. Notice: Discontinuation of Analog "Over-the-Air" TV Coupled with the closure of the CBC's analog repeater network in 2012, the St. John's area is the only part of the province that does not need a cable or satellite subscription for "over-the-air" TV. However, few Newfoundlanders lost access to NTV due to the high penetration of cable and satellite in the province.
{ class="wikitable" ! Station ! City of licence ! Channel ! ERP ! HAAT ! Transmitter coordinates ! Closed | ||||||
| CJON-TV-4 | Bay Bulls | 10 (VHF) | 0.009 kW | NA | 2011 | |
| CJCN-TV | Norris Arm | 4 (VHF) | 100 kW | 2013 | ||
| CJCV-TV | Clarenville | 11 (VHF) | 0.211 kW | 2013 | ||
| CJLN-TV | Lawn | 10 (VHF) | 0.009 kW | NA | 2011 | |
| CJLW-TV | Deer Lake | 8 (VHF) | 2.5 kW | 2013 | ||
| CJMA-TV | Marystown | 11 (VHF) | 1.8 kW | 2013 | ||
| CJOM-TV | Argentia | 3 (VHF) | 14 kW | 2013 | ||
| CJOX-TV-1 | Grand Bank | 2 (VHF) | 9.26 kW | 2012 | ||
| CJRR-TV | Red Rocks | 11 (VHF) | 0.805 kW | 2012 | ||
| CJSV-TV | Stephenville | 4 (VHF) | 8.34 kW | 2012 | ||
| CJWB-TV | Bonavista | 10 (VHF) | 17.6 kW | 2013 | ||
| CJWN-TV | Corner Brook | 10 (VHF) | 14.75 kW | 2013 | ||
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