There were a number of Canadian stations that had secondary affiliations with one of the US TV networks especially in the 50's and into the early 60's.  Most were independently owned stations but also an affiliate of CBC.

CKLW while still affiliated with CBC was also an affiliate of the Dumont TV network in the US.  I know that a few stations in Western Canada also had secondary affiliations with American networks for a time.

I don't know much about these arrangements or how extensive they were.  I am sure some programming was involved but I was also of the understanding that it involved news reporting.  This meant that a station like CKNX could run reports of stories from CBS on their local news.  In turn CKNX could send reports for CBS if anything of note happened in mid-western Ontario that would be of interest to a US audience.  And not necessarily always hard news.  

When the old NewsRadio network was operating across Canada, they were also affiliated with CBS radio.  When working at CKPR in Thunder Bay our radio station would send voice reports to CBS Radio in New York from time to time.  Occasionally they would call and ask if we had any reports or information on certain stories. 

Once we had a large train derailment in town and our news people sent various reports to CBS radio and all reports ended with the reporters name and CBS News Thunder Bay.  I actually did one of the reports for CBS Radio early one morning when they called and wanted a report on the derailment.  

CNN refer to Canadian stations as affiliates when they pick up a report from a Canadian source or network.  

Very interesting!  I only knew of the early years of U.S. network radio where some Canadian stations, notably CKLW, were, for a time, affiliates of U.S. networks.

The early days of Canadian TV, before microwave networks were in place in the vast majority of the country, meant airing film delivered by Freight and broadcasting live and local.

After the demise of Newsradio, CBS News became affiliated with Standard Broadcast News in Canada, which was owned by the Slaights and had been formerly involved with NBC Radio News. NBC folded its radio news division for a number of years after its purchase by Westwood One. 

As an SBN reporter, I filed for CBS Radio News on occasion and while it was great fun (and certainly didn't hurt the bank account, as they paid well), there were a few things you had to learn. Editors there had no understanding of our Parliamentary system and couldn't distinguish between the federal and provincial governments. Another annoying quirk was their insistence on referring to politicians as "Mister" or "Ms." rather than by their last names alone. For example, when I filed a story, I would refer to "Prime Minister Mulroney" in my first reference, but then shorten it to "Mulroney" for each subsequent reference. I occasionally had to redo voicers to meet this need. 

Occasionally things got absurd. Sometimes we would get requests to get comment from the Prime Minister of the day on mundane trade issues. The governor of Oklahoma or Maine would make a gripe about "unfair Canadian competition" regarding fish, lumber or pork, and a CBS editor would call us up asking for comment from the PM. They'd be incredulous when we told them that the PM wouldn't be aware of any such problems and the PM's office would likely refer us to the Minister of Trade or Foreign Affairs and they'd only offer a brief statement. I'd simply ask them if we could call them we needed comment from the White House if the Premier of Quebec complained about imports of Vermont maple syrup.

 

A station in Jamestown,NY once affiliated with CTV. Read about it here in the history section about WNYP-TV:
"CTV invades America"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNYB
 

Last edited by canam2021 (April 18, 2024 2:21 pm)

BowmanvilleBob wrote:

Another annoying quirk was their insistence on referring to politicians as "Mister" or "Ms." rather than by their last names alone. 
 

Yup!  This was still part of standards until very recently.  Some of the saltier vets still use 'Mr Biden' or 'Mr Trump' on second reference but it's not enforced the way it used to be.  There were other weird practices like: you couldn't play a portion of the national anthem, it had to be all or nothing.  So once, during the 2004 presidential campaign when GW Bush was caught saying something dumb, on a hot mic, during the anthem, the executive editor insisted the anchor play the entire thing and not talk over it. The VP of news vetoed that when stations complained.  

And, yes, CBS still makes stringers lock out by saying 'For CBS News...".  The exception was if the reporter worked for an o&o (like WCBS, before Audacy bought it).  

Anyone remember the old checks they used to pay stringers with?  I kept a few, uncashed, from ages ago.  They were covered in CBS eye logo watermarks.  Pretty cool.