CHNB-DT


CHNB-DT, virtual and VHF digital channel 12, is a Global owned-and-operated television station licensed to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, serving as the network's outlet for both New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Owned by Corus Entertainment, it is a sister station to CIHF-DT in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The two stations share studios on Gottingen Street in Downtown Halifax; CHNB-DT's transmitter is located on Mount Champlain. On cable, the station is available on Rogers Cable and Eastlink channel 6. On satellite, it is carried on Bell TV channel 198.

History

The station was launched on September 5, 1988 as CIHF-TV-2, owned by the Irving family's New Brunswick Broadcasting Company, which also owned CHSJ-TV, the CBC affiliate for all of New Brunswick. The station launched with three transmitters, namely those in Saint John, Fredericton, and Moncton. When MITV launched, the station took all prime time American shows from CHSJ—reportedly a prelude to the CBC dropping all prime time American programming nationwide.
It was closely tied with sister station CIHF-TV in Halifax. Both shared the same branding, MITV, and their schedules were almost identical. However, the stations offered separate newscasts to their respective provinces and opportunities for advertisers to buy ad space on one or both stations. Furthermore, despite the New Brunswick station's rebroadcaster-like callsign, the stations were separately licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. At the time, MITV was the only over-the-air independent television station in the area, with studios and main operation centre in Halifax, and all other functions in Saint John. As MITV shared owners with CHSJ-TV, a popular joke in the Maritimes was that MITV stood for "More Irving Television".
After losing $5 million each year since sign-on, MITV was sold to Canwest on August 29, 1994. This was part of a three-way deal, which saw the CBC taking control of CHSJ-TV, moving it to Fredericton, and renaming it CBAT, making it a full CBC O&O. Later in the year, MITV moved its operational and business headquarters to Dartmouth.
In 1995, MITV's Saint John offices were moved out of the old CHSJ building and into a new facility in Brunswick Square. Within a year of new ownership and its resulting reorganization and marketing focus, the station became profitable for the first time in its short history. In 1997, as a part of Canwest's rebranding programme, MITV became "Global Maritimes".
Additional retransmitters signed on in 1998, in Charlottetown, Woodstock, Miramichi, and St. Stephen.
On December 17, 2012, Global Maritimes officially began operations at its new home on Gottingen Street in Downtown Halifax. Previously, its operations were located on Akerley Blvd. in an industrial park in the Halifax suburb of Dartmouth.
In April 2013, CIHF-2 was rebranded Global New Brunswick, while sister station CIHF was rebranded Global Halifax, marking the first time the stations have not used the same brand. The stations began producing separate nightly newscasts in addition to their already existing separate evening newscasts, and a new senior correspondent was hired for Global New Brunswick. The stations will continue to share newsgathering resources and anchors. Despite the separate branding, the two stations' non-news schedules are almost identical with the exception of idents and commercials.
Although the station has always been separately licensed, it was not until June 18, 2013 that its callsign changed from CIHF-DT-2 to CHNB-DT.

News operation

Global New Brunswick airs two local newscasts a day: Global News at 6 presented from the Global Halifax studios by Sarah Ritchie; and Global News at 11, presented out of Global's Toronto news centre. Global News at 6 New Brunswick is followed by Global National at 6:30 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays, Global Halifax and Global New Brunswick share pan-regional newscasts, presented from the Toronto news centre, on weekends at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. In addition, Global New Brunswick simulcasts Global News Morning live from Global Halifax weekday mornings from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.
Along with a growing number of other Global stations, CHNB has used a "virtual" studio since 2007. The anchor sits behind a desk in front of a green screen, onto which a virtual reality studio is digitally projected. Cameras and tapes are cued and controlled from a centralized control centre—which was originally in Vancouver, but was moved in August 2008 to Edmonton. A number of the redundancies made in October 2007 were directly attributable to the introduction of this new technology.
Global Maritimes also had a 5:30 p.m. newscast called the Early News, but was cancelled as of early 2007 to make way for a full hour late-night newscast. The Early News was the first attempt by Global Maritimes to compete against CTV Atlantic's flagship news magazine program Live at 5. Global also had a noon lifestyle show called The Noon Show, which was cancelled due to low ratings.
On June 8, 2011, the station announced that Ron Kronstein would become the senior anchor/producer for both the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick editions of the Evening News; Kronstein was the former host of Live at 5 on ATV until 2003. On the same day, the station provided more details about its upcoming Morning News, and announced that up to a dozen new reporters, producers, and videographers would be hired at its bureaus in Halifax, Sydney, Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton.
On January 28, 2013, Global Maritimes launched a three-hour weekday morning program titled the Morning News, as part of an expansion of local news programming on Global owned-and-operated stations across Canada.

Notable former on-air staff

The Maritimes are located in the Atlantic Time Zone, which is one hour ahead of the Eastern Time Zone, where Global's CIII Toronto is located. In order to accommodate such a time zone difference and maximize simultaneous substitution opportunities with the American stations carried on cable, CHNB's prime time schedule deviates from that of most other Global O&Os, with some shows airing earlier in the evening, and occasionally on different nights, compared to other Global stations.

Transmitters

The station operates the following rebroadcast transmitters.
StationCity of licenceChannelERPHAATTransmitter Coordinates
CHNB-DT-1Fredericton, NB44
Virtual: 11.1		28 kW163.5 m
CHNB-DT-3Moncton, NB27
Virtual: 27.1		86 kW311.5 m
CHNB-TV-11Woodstock, NB38 51.9 kW174.3 m
CHNB-TV-12St. Stephen, NB21 31.3 kW240.8 m
CHNB-TV-13Miramichi, NB40 41.7 kW119.1 m
CHNB-DT-14Charlottetown, PEI42
Virtual: 42.1		6.4 kW146.0 m