The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / Sub-Carrier Channels Prove CHCH Is On The Right Track

**Posted by RadioActive** September 10, 2025 8:13 am

If all you have is Canadian cable, you may have never heard of stations like Cozi, Antenna TV, Comet or MeTV. Some of these channels are available in the GTA, but you'll need an antenna to get them - they're over-the-air only. And they have one other thing in common - they all carry classic TV sitcoms and dramas.

A story in the Detroit Free Press looks at how they've restored a longing for the good-old-days and have been finding success with viewers. (For Windsor viewers, they also list what they can get with an antenna.)

But as I read the article, I thought of CHCH and its attempt to cash in on the trend, one of the few full power OTA stations to do this in North America. If you believe the conclusions put forth in the story, they're on the right track. And by continually rotating the kinds of shows they have, CH doesn't let them get stale. (They recently added "All In The Family," the show that changed TV forever.)

For some here, all these shows are "new," because they weren't around when they were on. For the rest of us, they're the comfort food of TV watching. And as streamers like Xumo, (VPN-only), Pluto TV and Tubi offer more and more free viewing options, you may find that everything old is new again.

Classic TV shows provide comfort viewing on free over-the-air subchannels like MeTV, Cozi

**Posted by Forward Power** September 10, 2025 8:57 am

Seeing CHCH airing all these classics brings back memories of Barrie's CKVR during its "Classic Television" years, including reruns of All In The Family right after the 6pm edition of Total News. 'VR had an excellent trio of shows leading into the 12:30 news on weekdays... I Love Lucy at 11, The Andy Griffith Show at 11:30, and Leave It To Beaver at noon. Of course there were many other vintage series, such as the original Star Trek, as well as Batman, Perry Mason, Gilligan's Island, and even some not-so-old (at the time) shows like WKRP In Cincinnati.

On the topic of AITF, the "retronewfoundland" channel on YouTube recently shared the credit roll from an episode of that show, as aired recently on CHCH, complete with Viacom's unforgettable "V of Doom" logo which still gives me the chills to this day... as a child, it didn't help that CKVR (which got the most viewing on my family's TV growing up) aired so many shows that were syndicated by the big V and had that 1976-vintage logo at the end.

**Posted by RadioActive** September 10, 2025 9:03 am

Not to forget the great All Night Show on CFMT.

**Posted by markow202** September 10, 2025 9:44 am

They should really do with again with CKVR up here in Barrie but Bell has its grasp on CTV2 informercials and Corner Gas.

**Posted by Fitz** October 27, 2025 7:49 am

Sub channel use in Canada is almost non existent but I wonder why some Canadian and more US stations don't use the sub channels for radio like WNED FM does, where ownership aligns. Seems like a good way to get a stereo broadcast on air . The system is also compatible with surround sound which radio is not. They could experiment with that.

My guess is the answer is the low penetration of OTA but it's another way to get radio signals out to people that don't have radios. Not sure how expensive it is to have a radio sub channel on TV.

**Posted by haydenmatthews14** **Online!** Yesterday 1:16 am

markow202 wrote:
They should really do with again with CKVR up here in Barrie but Bell has its grasp on CTV2 informercials and Corner Gas.

I think CTV2 should ditch the Informercials on weekday mornings and pick up syndicated programming instead.

**Posted by markow202** Yesterday 9:38 am

haydenmatthews14 wrote:
markow202 wrote:
They should really do with again with CKVR up here in Barrie but Bell has its grasp on CTV2 informercials and Corner Gas.
I think CTV2 should ditch the Informercials on weekday mornings and pick up syndicated programming instead.

Its a complete waste of a station at the moment with so much potential. Bell is honestly.....F.
CHCH has a great line up of shows now and thrilled to see Knight Rider on at 3 pm weekdays! Total CKVR childhood memories right there.

**Posted by Forward Power** Yesterday 11:13 am

At the very least, CTV2 is airing The Littlest Hobo weekday mornings at 9:30, at least on their Ottawa/Pembroke station, CHRO... saw one of the episodes a couple of weeks ago while in hospital. If rights permit, bring back some of the other stuff from the Glen-Warren/CFTO library, like Definition, Just Like Mom (as creepy as Ferg was with the kids), and Guess What, and I would definitely tune in... though the "BonusRoundCanada" channel on YouTube has a bunch of Guess What and Definition episodes from the original tapes, as well as other Canadian game shows like The New Liars Club, Acting Crazy, and Jackpot, all of which aired on Global in this neck of the woods.

**Posted by RadioActive** Yesterday 12:04 pm

As a longtime independent, CHCH has always had to figure out creative ways to program the station. These days, it's reruns of classic shows, which has earned them a niche in the market.

But in the old days, CH had quite the reputation for showing exclusive movie premieres on TV, and they garnered a lot of publicity from some of the flicks they got to debut first in on TV in North America. Wouldn't work today with all the streaming services, but back in the late 60s and early 70s,they were a destination for those kinds of exclusives.

**Posted by ckg927** Yesterday 4:54 pm

I've said this before and I'll say it again: Channel Zero's on to something with what they're doing with CHCH. And since MeTV was mentioned here, MAYBE Channel Zero can talk to Weigel Broadcasting(who gave us MeTV)to get some pointers and see if they can extend what they do on CHCH to maybe make a cable network built around classic TV. It should be noted, too, that MeTV grew out of a programming block on WWME-TV in Chicago.

**Posted by RadioAaron** Yesterday 5:26 pm

The way the US subcarrier channels work is actually detrimental to TV in the long term.

Largely, these networks lease out the sub-channels, and then sell cheap, bulk, programmatic advertising - largely dollars that would have been spent of broadcast and cable networks that actually produce original programming.