| CBC Parliamentary Television Network | |
|---|---|
| Launched | September 1979 |
| Closed | October 1992 |
| Owned by | Canadian Broadcasting Corporation |
| Country | Canada |
| Broadcast area | National |
CBC Parliamentary Television Network is a now defunct Canadian cable television specialty channel that broadcast the Canadian House of Commons proceedings via Anik satellite to Canadian cable television headends between September 1979 and 1992.
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The House of Commons Broadcast Service was set up in October 1977 to be responsible to maintain the video and audio equipment. It was CBC's responsibility to take that signal and transmit it to the Anik satellite to be received by Canadian cable companies.
For most of the network's history, John Warren hosted a preview monologue before the beginning of and provided a short summary after the daily proceedings.
In 1992, the Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC), a consortium of many Canadian cable companies, took over responsibility for broadcasting the Canadian House of Commons proceedings.
| Day | Time Period |
|---|---|
| Monday | 1:55 p.m. to 6 p.m.; 7:55 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. |
| Tuesday | 1:55 p.m. to 6 p.m.; 7:55 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. |
| Wednesday | 1:55 p.m. to 6 p.m. |
| Thursday | 1:55 p.m. to 6 p.m.; 7:55 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. |
| Friday | 10:55 p.m. to 1 p.m.; 1:55 p.m. to 5 p.m. |
At times of special occasions, the network was used to carry coverage of Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) hearings, as happened in the fall of 1981 to license Canada's first pay television services.
During the summer of 1984, Pope John Paul II toured Canada. The network was used to carry live coverage as he visited several cities.
In October 1984 it was used to simulcast coverage from NASA TV of Canada's first astronaut in space, Marc Garneau aboard Space Shuttle Challenger.
In 1986, it was used to air CBC's The National and The Journal at 10 p.m. Eastern when it was pre-empted on the main CBC network by the NHL hockey playoffs.[1] This prompted complaints from the cable services and the CBC's privately owned affiliates and the network was rebuked by the CRTC for not having first asked for the authorization from the CRTC. Commission chairman Andre Bureau commented "We're not against the CBC using the parliamentary channel for special events if they are authorized to do so by the CRTC, but they should respect the regulations and come to us first."[2] The experiment was not repeated.[1]
For a while during the 1980s, CBC suggested that its broadcast day could be expanded into a second CBC network, CBC-2. However when they applied to the CRTC for this network, they denied it for that purpose.
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