Canada (CPN)
OTHER CANADIAN STATIONS
The following Canadian TV channels also carried Doctor Who, but the number of broadcasts on each was only limited.
CPN (SASKATCHEWAN) (1978-79)
Channel Profile
The CO-OPERATIVE PROGRAMMING NETWORK (CPN) was a closed circuit pay television service established in late 1977, and operated by a federation of cooperatives in Regina, Saskatoon and Moose Jaw, in the Province of Saskatchewan. The service was not licenced by the Canadian federal government.
CPN operated on three UHF channels, Channel 15 (HBO), 16 (Variety Fare) and 17 (Just for Kids), while a fourth carried a continuous broadcast news readout.
The CPN operation did not have a network connection to simultaneously transmit programming to the three cable systems. To ensure that the three CPN systems were the same and ran simultaneously, CPN made duplicate tapes from master copies at a facility in Regina for distribution to each of the channels. These tapes would have been wiped and reused on a regular basis.
CPN commenced broadcasts in March 1978. But after less than a year of operation, the station began to experience severe technical and structural difficulties, and by the end of the year it had gone into receivership. Its final broadcasts were in June 1979.
Stories bought and broadcast
JON PERTWEE
BBC sales paperwork records that the following three Jon Pertwee stories were sold to "Canada – ETV / Saskatchewan" (the ETV notation would appear to suggest that the BBC considered the sale to be to an educational station):
Three stories, 14 episodes:
| GGG | The Claws of Axos | 4 |
| KKK | Day of the Daleks | 4 |
| NNN | The Mutants | 6 |
CPN therefore bought one story from GROUP B and two from Group C. They would have been supplied as NTSC video tapes.
These three serials had also been purchased and aired by CKVU and TVO two years earlier. It's not clear why such a small package was acquired by CPN, when many more Jon Pertwee serials were available to them. Had CPN not gone out of business so soon after its launch, it's possible that it may have acquired the other serials.
TOM BAKER
The CPN run lasted for 40 episodes (see Airdates below). The other 26 episodes were Tom Baker stories. These presumably came from the same general package of stories that aired on TVO (and in the United States) around the same time. But given the short run of aired episodes, if CPN had purchased the standard 23-story package of Bakers, they certainly did not screen them all.
Transmission
The CPN broadcasts of Doctor Who commenced on Sunday, 5 November 1978 at 5.00pm. This was the first time viewers in Saskatchewan saw Doctor Who since the CBC telecasts in 1965.
From 7 January 1979, the timeslot moved to 5.30pm. Broadcasts also extended to three extra days a week, with episodes now on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The US comedy Nanny and the Professor occupied the Tuesday and Thursday slot – see the CPN "Just for Kids" schedule "grid" at right.
The 40th and final episode of Doctor Who aired on Wednesday, 28 February 1979.
The three named Pertwees account for only 14 episodes, leaving 26 unidentified. Assuming the package commenced with Robot and ran in story order, the run would have included all of season 12, then at least one 4-parter from season 13, before coming to an end mid-way through another 4-parter!
Although this was the final airing of Doctor Who on CPN, viewers in southern Saskatchewan near the US border could receive signals from Prairie Public Television PBS affiliate KWSE in Williston, North Dakota, which was regularly screening Doctor Who during the 1980s.
TV listings
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← AIRDATES ...... (CLICK ICON TO GO TO TABLE SHOWING EPISODE BREAKDOWN AND AIRDATES - N/S = story title is Not Stated) |
Listings have been taken from the Star-Phoenix from Saskatoon and Leader Post of Regina. The Star-Phoenix Friday paper contained a pull-out TV guide for the upcoming week. In all cases the series was called "Dr Who". No episode titles were given.
In the Regina Leader Post issue dated 8 September 1978, CPN promoted the new series with a COMING SOON on Channel 17 "DR. WHO" print ad.
For the later week day screenings, the listing said "Dr Who (Mon, Wed, Fri)".
CPN Idents
There are some generic station idents for CPN here:
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CITV (1996)
Channel Profile
CITV was an independent television station in Edmonton, Alberta, transmitting on Channel 13.
Stories bought and broadcast
PAUL McGANN
One movie, 84 minutes:
| TVM | TV Movie | 1 |
Transmission
TV listings
The 1996 TV Movie (which had been filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia earlier that year) had its WORLDWIDE DEBUT on CITV in Edmonton, Alberta, on Sunday, 12 May 1996, at 10.00pm, Canadian Mountain Time. This was two days ahead of the US screening on the Fox network, and 14 days ahead of its UK broadcast. This is the first and so far only time that Doctor Who has premiered in Canada.
(The movie played two days later on CHCH (Channel 11), Hamilton, Ontario, on Tuesday, 14 May 1996, at 9.00pm, Canadian Eastern Time.)
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