CHCH-TV

CHCH-DT

Hamilton, Ontario Canada
Channels	Digital: 15 (UHF) Virtual: 11
Branding	CHCH
Programming
Affiliations	Independent indieNET (secondary)
Ownership
Owner	Channel Zero (2190015 Ontario Inc.)
History
First air date	June 7, 1954 (1954-06-07)
Former call signs	CHCH-TV (1954–2011)
Former channel number(s)	Analogue: 11 (VHF, 1954–2011) Digital: 18 (UHF, 2008–2011), 11 (VHF, 2011–2013)
Former affiliations	CBC (1954–1961) Independent (1961–2001) CH / E! (2001–2009)
Call sign meaning	Canada, Hamilton
Technical information
Licensing authority	CRTC
ERP	456.5 kW
HAAT	337 m (1,106 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	43°18′12″N 79°57′43″W ⧼validator-fatal-error⧽
Translator(s)	see § Transmitters
Links
Website	CHCH

CHCH-DT (channel 11) is an independent television station in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Owned by Channel Zero, the station maintains studios on Innovation Drive in the west end of Hamilton; prior to 2021, it was located near the corner of Jackson and Caroline streets in downtown Hamilton for nearly 65 years. The station has additional offices at the Marriott on the Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Its old transmitter was located on First Road West in the former city of Stoney Creek; it was demolished in March 2024 and replaced with a new transmitter located on Highway 5 near Millgrove Side Road in Dundas, Ontario, which started transmitting in November 2023.

CHCH signed on the air on June 7, 1954, as a CBC affiliate which was founded by Ken Soble. Beginning in 1961, it became an independent station which transformed into a national superstation on January 1, 1982. In 1990, the station was acquired by Western International Communications.

After several years as an independent station, CHCH was acquired by Canwest in 2000 and became the flagship station for the CH programming service as sister to the flagship CIII-TV of the Global Television Network. In 2007, the CH stations were rebranded to E! after an American cable network of the same name. When Canwest had financial problems, CHCH as well as Montreal's CJNT-TV was acquired by independent broadcaster Channel Zero in 2009. It changed its format to an all-news and all-movies station. In 2010, the station again began to air U.S. prime time programming.

Programming

As an independent station, CHCH produced local programs such as the children's talent show Tiny Talent Time (which was revived in September 2014 in honour of the station's 60th anniversary), Jane Gray's Hobby Time and a daily talk show hosted by Elaine Callei. The station also produced a number of important Canadian syndicated series in the 1970s and 1980s, including The Pierre Berton Show, The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, Me & Max, Party Game, The Baxters, the Canadian version of Supermarket Sweep, and Smith & Smith, and was the original television home of The Red Green Show. Hamilton native Martin Short also made his television debut on the station. The 1986–87 syndicated revival of Split Second hosted by Monty Hall was also taped at CHCH's studios; their involvement was noted in the credits of the show in Canadian broadcasts, whereas the American copies only noted distributor Viacom Enterprises. As of September 2018, CHCH's daytime programming consists of locally produced newscasts geared primarily to the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario, and a block of classic television series airing weekdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and featuring sitcoms and dramas from the 1970s and 1980s. In prime time, the station runs only a handful of first-run domestic and American entertainment programs during prime time and the late evening hours as well as movies. A syndication deal with 20th Television provided the station with programming from both the National Geographic Channel and MTM Enterprises libraries, but by September 2018, most of the National Geographic programming was dropped as the station had reformatted to emphasize its retro programming. Some of CHCH's imported programs air on CHEK-DT in Victoria, British Columbia, a separately-owned independent station which had been CHCH's sister station during the WIC, CH and E! eras. Upon the initial dissolution of the E! system, the two stations jointly purchased a virtually identical lineup of prime time programming at first, although their prime time schedules later began to diverge. CHEK currently airs entertainment programs from Yes TV, which already serves the Toronto–Hamilton market with CITS-DT.

The station broadcast home games from the Hamilton Red Wings (a minor league hockey team in the OHA Junior "A" league that was an affiliate of the NHL's Detroit Red Wings) from the Hamilton Forum (which were both owned by Ken Soble) on Thursday nights in the 1960s, with Norm Marshall doing the play-by-play. For a time, CHCH broadcast local mid-week telecasts of NHL games from the Toronto Maple Leafs, and co-produced Buffalo Sabres games with Adelphia Cable and the Sabres' owners. It also produced a wrestling show called Ringside Wrestling, which was filmed in the Telecentre, before later moving to the Hamilton Forum. The station later reproduced World Wrestling Federation programs for Canadian audiences before the company's focus shifted entirely to cable television.

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