CJON
From Freepedia
CJON is a privately-owned television station in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It uses the on-air brand NTV, which stands for Newfoundland Television. It is the only private television station in Newfoundland and Labrador, and has rebroadcast transmitters throughout the southern part of the island of Newfoundland. Northern Newfoundland and Labrador see it via Cable television and satellite TV.
CJON first signed on in 1955 as a CBC affiliate, switching to CTV in 1964 when CBC put CBNT on-air in St. John's. It was known as NBC, for the "Newfoundland Broadcasting Company", until 1978 when the United States NBC network became available on cable. To avoid confusion, CJON was rebranded NTV. CJON became available on C-Band satellite in 1994, mostly to give Northern Newfoundland and Labrador access to CJON's programming. Satellite viewers also watched the station and it was popular due to it being unscrambled (free). However, due to issues involving program rights, it was forced to leave C-Band in 1996. It would still be available on the Express Vu and Star Choice satellite services, beginning in 1997. It disaffiliated from CTV in 2002 after being forced to pay for programming it had long aired free of charge and has been independent since then. Since it left CTV, it has aired a predominantly Global schedule. However, it still airs CTV's newscasts, and video from its newscasts can still be seen on CTV's 24-hour news channel, CTV Newsnet.
The station is reknowned in Canada for having an unusual programming strategy -- "prime time" lasts five hours rather than the typical three, music videos are sometimes aired in place of commercials, and the station is often blamed for simultaneous substitution errors in which the wrong programming is substituted. Also, at certain times in the early hours of the morning, a full half-hour or hour would be dedicated to showing viewers scenes of Newfoundland and Labrador while at the same time they play music from various local artists in order to get the feel of Newfoundland and Labrador.
