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Dougall Media is a Canadian media company which has several television, radio and publishing holdings in Northwestern Ontario.
Prior to February 2010, CHFD was a CTV affiliate which also carried some Global programming. The station was unable to come to agreement with CTV to continue operating as an affiliate and filed an application to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to remove the CTV affiliation requirement from their license Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2010-5 and to operate as a Global affiliate.
In March 2010, CKPR announced it was unable to come to an agreement with CBC to continue to operate as an affiliate, CKPR-TV seeks licence adjustment Tbnewswatch and filed an application with the CRTC to remove the CBC affiliation requirement from their license. Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2010-128 CKPR stated in their application that it "would operate as an independent local station and intends to source its non-local programming". However, after continued negotiations, the station announced in March 2011 that they had come to an agreement that would see them air CBC programming for another five years; CKPR-Television, CBC ink programming deal Tbnewswatch in June 2014, Dougall Media announced that CKPR's affiliation would switch from CBC to CTV in September. "CTV set to return to CKPR-TV". tbnewswatch.com, June 18, 2014.
The stations' status as a locally owned twinstick accounts for some of the unique circumstances of the Thunder Bay television market. For example, Thunder Bay was the only major market in the province in which CIII-DT and CHCH-DT did not add rebroadcasters during those stations' provincewide expansions in the 1990s; although both stations did apply for transmitters in Thunder Bay, both were declined by the CRTC due to the potential impact of out-of-market competition on Dougall's advertising revenue. It is also, for the same reason, the only major market in the province where CITY-DT is still unavailable either terrestrially or on basic cable.
Dougall has also previously cited CTV's cost-cutting measures of the early 2000s, such as the merger of all local news on the four CTV Northern Ontario stations in Northeastern Ontario into a single newscast produced in Greater Sudbury, as a key factor in its refusal to consider selling the stations, lest such a sale result in the loss of local programming in Thunder Bay.
On January 27, 2016, Dougall Media officials revealed that CKPR and CHFD are both being sustained by the payouts from life insurance policies on former owner Fraser Dougall and a former general manager who both died in 2015, and at the time said the stations could sign off for good by September 1, 2016, barring a favourable change in CRTC policies. As of October 2023 the stations remained in operation.
It was formerly known as Thunder Bay Post, a name that was discontinued in October 2003. Prior to that it was known as Lakehead Living.
The paper's editorial staff also contributes to the news websites TbNewsWatch.com, NWONewswatch.com and SNNewswatch.com, which also have material contributed from the company's radio and television newsrooms.
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