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Recent developments

Jimmy Tapp, a veteran CFCF and CBC broadcaster and pioneer of the television talk show in Canada during the 1950s, died at age of 86.

Jean Pouliot dies of Alzheimer's at the age of 81. (August 8, 2004)
Pouliot is considered by many to have been a pioneer in Montreal and Quebec television. In 1957, he became the general manager of Television de Quebec Inc. (known later on as Pathonic), which included CFCM (TVA) and
CKMI-TV (then CBC and now Global) in Quebec City. In 1971 he founded the TVA network. In 1979 he purchased CFCF-12, which he owned for 20 years. While at CFCF he buys CF Cable TV and launches the TQS network in 1985. Click here for a much more detailed biography.

Actor Jack Creley (Snow Job) has passed away in Toronto on Wednesday, March 12th, of congestive heart failure. He was 78.


Snow Job Ticket Stub

A 1984 ticket for Snow Job, a CTV network sitcom filmed at CFCF Montreal. What's interesting is the use of the words "Hit Comedy Series" considering that critics and viewers agreed that the show bombed. Snow Job first aired in early 1983 and managed to survive a couple years.

Jpg. courtesy of Mike Elliott, a former Dollard resident now living in Sarnia, Ontario. He never made it to the taping but kept the ticket.


Reporter Bob Benedetti retired on Feb. 27th after almost 35 years with channel 12.

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CFCF 12 Studio Montreal

The CFCF 12 405 Ogilvy Avenue studios, back when they just opened.

From Mike


Channel Info: CFCF
Cable (West Montreal) 11
Cable (Central and East Montreal) 11
Cable (Digital Montreal) 7
Look TV 62
Bell ExpressVu 208
Star Choice 312
Cable (Burlington) 21
Cable (Plattsburgh) 12

History

This station began operation on January 20th, 1961, in a small studio below a dance hall. The exact location was the old Avon theatre at 215 Laurier Street . The early broadcasts of Pulse News were a sound engineers' nightmare on Friday nights as music from upstairs crept down into the newsroom during the show. It wasn't too long before that station moved into its permanent home at 405 Oglivy Avenue in Montreal's north end Park-Extension neighbourhood, where it remained for forty years. They recently moved to 1205 Papineau Avenue.


Corporate history

The station had been founded by the Canadian Marconi Company, which was owned by a parent company in England. However, CFCF eventually had to find a new owner because government agencies didn't want the station to be controlled by foreign owners. After a few years, the station was sold to Multiple Access, a computer and communications company owned by the Bronfman family. Unfortunately, the Bronfmans had no broadcast experience and, by 1978, it was confirmed that they wanted out.

John Basset then tried to buy the station on behalf of Baton but the CRTC didn't believe that the deal would be in Montreal's public interest. Funny enough, the station is now owned by the owners of CTV.

In 1979, Jean Pouliot bought CFCF-TV and would continue to own it well into the nineties, but not without problems of his own. In 1986, channel 12 became a sister station with the new French-language network Télévision Quatre-Saisons (TQS) and while TQS provided a refreshing change to francophone viewers, it also experienced major financial problems. While CFCF was airing Growing Pains, TQS was experiencing them and Pouliot had to use channel 12's profits to finance TQS's growing debt.

Some financial relief came to CFCF in the early 1990's through the help of CanWest/Global. CanWest invested a considerable amount of money in the station and, in exchange, CFCF agreed to become a "twin-stick" operation by applying to the CRTC to run a Global repeater station. But Global changed its mind, citing tax problems.


Rosie Ad 1997

1997 TV Times Ad



Yet, that would not be the end of Global's influence on CFCF. In the mid-nineties, CanWest joined forces with TVA to apply for a license with the CRTC to set up a regional Global network in Quebec. Jean Pouliot saw the threat of new competition as quite problematic and decided to sell his assets. This caused a shake-up of the media industry in Quebec as not only was CFCF for sale but so were TQS and CF Cable TV, which were also owned by CFCF inc. Videotron launched a bid to buy CFCF inc. so that it could merge its cable company with CF Cable, but they couldn't keep Channel 12 because Videotron also owned TVA which was invloved with the Global application. The CRTC wouldn't allow two English local stations under the same owner.

CFCF ad Dukes

Therefore, Videotron sold CFCF to WIC, a company that owned CTV affiliates in B. C. as well as independent stations in Ontario and Alberta (TQS also had to be sold, by the way). So, in 1997, CFCF 12 now had a new owner and also had private competition for the first time in 35 years when Global Quebec went on the air that same year.

But more problems were in store for CFCF and, once more, it had to do with CanWest/Global (I'm beginning to sound like a broken record). Global still wasn't a truly national network and it figured it needed to fill a missing link in Alberta to become one. (Actually, they also still don't have a station in Newfoundland, unless you include NTV which could be considerd a Global station by default) Well, WIC happened to own stations in Alberta and Global decided to buy out WIC's television assets. This means that CFCF is was briefly owned by CanWest/Global. But CanWest owned it under trusteeship and it had to sell the station ASAP. CTV's parent company Bell Globemedia is now the owner.

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Sounds of CFCF

Click on a link to listen. (mp3)

It's Your Move (Sept. 66)

A 3 minute clip, with Paul Hanover, courtesy of Dan Kowal (CFCF Engineering Supervisor)

CFCF 12 test pattern

(Note: CTV 1967 Batman promo & 1988 Expos/Blue Jays Baseball jingle have moved to the CJOH page)

CFCF 1984/85 season station ID (Snow Job)

A screenshot of this promo is also available


CFCF 1984/85 season promo (V)

Screenshots of this promo also available


Nite Life promo (mid-80s)

Courtesy: Mike Elliott


CFCF 1985 station ID (Night Heat)

Just Look! Look what’s here on 12. Courtesy of Mike Elliott.


Pulse News wrap-up (Sept 2nd, 1986) & station ID

Features some banter between silly-weatherman Don McGowan and sports broadcaster Ron Reusch along with the Cool Hand Luke jingle. The jingle was also used by many Eyewitness News broadcasts in the United States. Check out the following at 80stvthemes.com; notably the original '70s version, based on Lalo Schifrin's score from the 1968 movie Cool Hand Luke.

The station ID features the "Twelve's The One" jingle and a plug for a brand new "high stakes" game show called The New Chain Reaction. I guess they were exaggerating a bit.

Clip courtesy of Mike Elliott.


Pulse Newsbreak (late '80s)

Courtesy: Mike Elliott


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CFCF 1989 station ID (My Two Dads)

An instrumental version of the "More on 12" jingle can be heard in the background.


CFCF ID from 1996 (Seinfeld)

A screenshot of this promo is also available


This one features "The 1 2 Watch" jingle.


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CFCF slogans and jingles of the past and present:


cfcf logo

Excerpt of a CFCF jingle sung by Luba. Not an official fall season jingle because it was introduced in mid-season.

"Nowhere else, but here in our city. Nowhere else, like CFCF 12..."

CFCF local shows:

Pulse News

Pulse (now CFCF News): Channel 12's local newscast. The late night edition has been on the air from the very beginning. The other editions came out later, in the opposite order that they air during the day. In other words Pulse at 6 would be second oldest of the Pulse formats followed by Pulse 12:30 and more recently the 6AM edition of Pulse. Dean Kaye was the original anchor.


Pulse News

CFCF News co-anchor Mutsumi Takahashi, back in late-2000 when they still called the show Pulse News

Courtesy: Mitchell Spector



As It Is

As It Is, 1975 Ad. The show went on the air in 1971.

Courtesy: Daren Gleason


CFCF 12 has always been known for its extensive local content. So much so, that when the station was bought by Vancouver based WIC Communications. Television executives out west didn’t understand why it cost so much to run the Montreal station, compared to the CTV affiliate in B. C. (BCTV, which is no longer part of CTV by the way) Channel 12 may have survived mass media conglomeration for quite awhile, but arguable at the expense of its local shows, something which made CFCF unique. Here's a list of CFCF local productions in order of appearance, more or less. I didn't have the exact dates to work with.

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Via email

A request for info regarding a childhood show on CFCF called Story Theatre

Programming today

With the exception of CFCF News, Access Hollywood and a few other shows, CFCF has almost the exact same program schedule as network owned stations in Ontario (CFTO and CJOH). A few of the morning shows have also been moved around so that they can sim-sub Regis and Kelly with WPTZ.

The meaning of call letters

CFCF stands for “Canada’s First, Canada’s Finest”. Now if your thinking that CFCF wasn’t Canada’s first TV station, well you would be right. But the call letters were used by former sister station CFCF 600 AM, long before channel 12 existed. CFCF radio was technically Canada’s oldest existing radio station.


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Merrill

From CFCF 2002


American Music Awards CFCF-TV advert, 1982

From The Gazette, Jan 25th, 1982.

Courtesy: Mike Elliott



CFCF Dukes, Stone & CTV Golf ads from TV Guide, 1980. CFCF & CTV logos & jingles belong to Bell GlobeMedia. This page not affiliated with CFCF or CTV


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