Digital terrestrial television in Canada (often shortened to DTT) is transmitted using the ATSC standard. Because Canada and the U.S. use the same standard and frequencies for channels, people near the Canada–United States border can watch digital television programming from television stations in either country where available. The ATSC standards are also used in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Suriname, and South Korea.
Jurisdiction over terrestrial broadcasting in Canada is primarily regulated by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). ISED has jurisdiction over the allotment of the terrestrial spectrum, and the CRTC has jurisdiction over the allotment of broadcast licences.
The CRTC imposed in 28 mandatory digital markets, a digital transition deadline for full power transmitters to switch from analogue transmitters to digital transmitters by 31 August 2011 if licensed broadcasters wanted to continue operating in those markets, with the exception of some CBC transmitters. Two weeks before the deadline, the CBC transmitters were given a temporary one-year extension to remain in analogue. No digital transition deadline has been set for low-power analogue transmitters and analogue transmitters outside the 28 mandatory digital markets.
In January 2007, ISED stopped issuing licences within Canada for new television transmitters broadcasting in analogue. All remaining analogue and digital terrestrial television signals across Canada broadcasting within the 600 MHz band were scheduled to either move out of the 600 MHz band or shut down no later than 2022 under an ISED schedule published in 2017;Digital Television (DTV) Transition Schedule - Updated April 2017– Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada which happened in January 2022.
History The digital television transition in Canada and the United States will result in spectrum on channels 52 to 69 being re-allocated for other purposes. The United States government already auctioned most of this spectrum and Canada is planning on doing the same. The United States government, using some proceeds of the spectrum auction, funded an education campaign in advance of the transition, provided subsidies to many broadcasters in support of transitioning to digital, and provided subsidies to consumers for digital to analogue converter boxes. In contrast, the Canadian government did not provide any similar funding in support of the digital television transition. The Canadian government's most visible efforts to support the public in the transition to digital over-the-air television has been in the form of a website, along with some newspaper, radio, and television advertisements in the month leading up to the transition deadline.
Engineering firm Spectrum Expert Inc. estimated a total cost to Canadian broadcasters of $378-425 million to convert all 738 Canadian full-power television transmitters to DTV on their newly assigned channels; if the 1238 low-power transmitters were converted, costs would increase further. Some of the highest costs were for existing full-power VHF rebroadcast transmitters that would have to be replaced by new UHF facilities in locations far from broadcast studios. As a worst-case scenario, CTV-owned CJOH-TV-6 and CJOH-TV-8 were estimated to have a conversion cost of over four million dollars each. While CTV threatened to shut down a long list of these full-power rebroadcasters on August 31, 2009, the transmitters are still on the air.
Several broadcasters, including the CBC, argued that there is no viable business case for a comprehensive digital conversion strategy in Canada. Converting a transmitter to digital has upfront capital equipment costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, which can in more extreme cases reach over a million dollars, though some cost recovery in energy costs is possible due to lower transmission power required to cover an area as compared to analogue, if the same channel is used. At CRTC hearings in 2007 on the future direction of regulatory policy for television, broadcasters proposed a number of strategies, including funding digital conversion by eliminating restrictions on the amount of advertising that television broadcasters are permitted to air, allowing terrestrial broadcasters to charge cable viewers a subscription fee (fee-for-carriage) similar to that already charged by cable specialty channels, permitting licence fees similar to those that fund the BBC in the United Kingdom, or eliminating terrestrial television broadcasting entirely and moving to an exclusively cable-based distribution model.
The CRTC ultimately decided to relax restrictions on advertising, gradually removing all limits to the number of advertisements per hour of broadcast programming, as the funding mechanism. A CRTC statement issued in June 2008 indicated that as of that date, only 22 digital transmitters had been fully installed across the entire country,"Networks unprepared for digital TV shift: CRTC", The Globe and Mail, June 24, 2008. and expressed the regulator's concern that Canada's television broadcasters were not adequately preparing for the shift to digital broadcasting.
The 2008 financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession adversely affected advertising sales, the primary source of revenue for most broadcasters. Inadequate revenue in combination with debt incurred from purchasing other media companies caused Canwest, owner of the Global Television Network, to file for bankruptcy protection and to be subsequently purchased by Shaw Communications. Some Global Television Network and CTV stations in smaller markets were closed or sold. Seeking further sources of revenue, the television broadcasters including CTV launched an aggressive and somewhat successful campaign to re-open debate on introducing value for signal from cable and satellite television providers in 2009.
On August 6, 2010, CBC/Radio-Canada announced in a press release that only its existing digital stations, along with both Alberta CBC Television originating stations plus all Télévision de Radio-Canada (SRC) originating stations in Quebec City and Moncton, would be DTV-ready in time for the August 2011 deadline. The remaining CBC/SRC originating O&Os were to be converted a year later in August 2012, subject to CRTC approval.CBC won't meet digital TV deadline, CBC News, August 6, 2010 In December 2010, CBC/Radio-Canada updated the information on its website to state that it was striving to convert originating O&O by August 31, 2011. The CBC stated that it does not intend on transitioning any of its full-power repeaters to digital, despite in some cases being in markets (such as Kitchener, London and Saskatoon) required to convert by August 31, 2011.
In many instances, stations transitioning to digital continued utilizing the same channel, antenna or other facilities for their new digital transmitters after the end of transition. To save costs, with the exception of some stations in the largest markets, stations chose to flash cut from analogue to digital at the transition deadline rather than spending on the infrastructure and energy costs needed to broadcast the station in analogue and digital at the same time.
Leading up to the transition deadline, CRTC expressed concern that "if all broadcasters wait until the last moment to proceed to the transition, there could be a shortage of professional engineers and competent technicians capable of assuming the development of new plans and the installation of new systems and structures". Due to limited engineering resources, Global Television Network flash cut its transmitters over a 2-month period leading up to the deadline and TV Ontario flash cut its transmitters two weeks before the deadline. In contrast, most other networks and stations converted at the deadline.
There are no requirements for new televisions sold in Canada to include digital tuners (as they must in the US market), nor are there any labelling requirements for analogue-only receivers; some new televisions may be unable to tune a digital signal without an external ATSC tuner. , an estimated 900,000 Canadians relying on antennas prior to the transition deadline were expected to lose over-the-air television reception by the transition deadline, as they were not ready for the digital transition. While a new HDTV receiver connected to a terrestrial television antenna will receive OTA digital television, Canadian regulations do not require cable television operators to carry these free local HDTV signals in unencrypted digital format on their systems.
Deployment CITY-TV was the first Canadian station to provide digital terrestrial service, first broadcasting in January 2003, and going full-time in March 2003. The first HD broadcast in Canada was CBC Sports' coverage of the Heritage Classic, an outdoor NHL game. The CBC ultimately launched a high definition feed of their eastern (Toronto) flagship CBLT in 2005, later launching feeds in Vancouver, Ottawa, and Montreal. As of 2008, other digital stations on-air included the CBC and Radio-Canada stations in Toronto and Montreal, as well as CTV's CFTO and CIVT, and Quebecor Media's independent station CKXT.
The first Canadian broadcaster to have delivered a digital-only terrestrial TV signal of any type, CKXT-TV (in Ottawa and London), signed on its pair of digital-only transmitters in 2008. These were both rebroadcasters of the same Toronto station with no local programme origination; the main Toronto station transmitted in both analogue and digital format. The first stations to complete the digital transition (on their main signals) were Trois-Rivières, Quebec's CFKM-DT, followed by CISA-DT in Lethbridge, Alberta.
As of July 2011, digital television broadcasts had commenced in just 11 of Canada's largest markets, but nearly all of the stations in mandatory markets ended up meeting the transition deadline. The stations that did not meet the deadline fall into two categories. First, there were some stations that had delays in converting to digital due to financial or technical issues. Second, are the CBC rebroadcaster transmitters in mandatory markets, and CTV's Access transmitters in Calgary, AB and Edmonton, AB. In the CBC's case, the CBC obtained an over year extension to convert its transmitters, publicly stating that it was not planning on converting these transmitters. The CBC later announced that all its analogue transmitters will be permanently shut down on July 31, 2012, and will not be replaced. In the case of CTV's Access transmitters, the network chose to shut them down at the transition deadline rather than converting them to digital.