CTVglobemedia has announced that it will not be renewing its licence to operate CKNX television in Wingham, Ontario. CKNX has been on the air for most of the past 54 years – it was television in its entirety for years when I was a schoolboy living on the farm in southwestern Ontario – with the exception of a few hours when the old former high school in which it was housed burned to the ground. The first staff who arrived in the morning to power up the transmitter, threw the switch and the building burst into flames. I recall wondering that day if and when we would have television again, as the CKNX rebroadcast of the CBC signal, supplemented by a few hours of local programming, was all the TV we got. Miraculously, the people who sold the hardware (cameras, control boards, transmitters etc.) to make television, and other other broadcasters, came through and, within 24 hours, CKNX was back on the air broadcasting from a vacant Wingham storefront. Soon after, a new and modern television studio was built and open. CKNX gave me my television debut when it obtained rights, as a CBC affiliate, for a local production of Reach for the Top. Noreen, Bill, Mel and I went on to 6 months or so of local fame. [that’s me in the top-row right at the affiliate stations’ championship and the closest I ever got to the cover of The Atlantic.] Channel 8 took me on me first trip outside Ontario and my first airplane ride.
Through its half century, CKNX-TV and CKNX Radio served as vital communications links for the farmers and small towns of southwestern Ontario. They were news, weather, stock market reports (as in beef and hog prices) as well as entertainment. CKNX left the CBC network years ago and most recently has been a A-Channel station for CTV, with next to no local programming. Farmers today get their weather and market information on in internet, like the rest of us, and can received update on their mobile phones and Blackberries while driving monster tractors in the back field. The dozen or so staff left at CKNX are probably less than number of personal assistants the CBC employs to get George Stroumboulopoulos ready to go on-air. Local TV for an audience of a few thousand is no longer viable and I can’t argue with CTV’s decision. It’s something like when the CNR cancelled local passenger service. But It’s part of my life that’s gone and nostalgia reigns.
