CHLT-DT

CHLT-DT is the TVA owned and operated station in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

The station went on the air for the first time on August 12, 1956. It was owned by La Tribune, the city's major newspaper, along with CHLT radio. Like most television stations in Quebec, it was a dual affiliate of both CBC and Radio-Canada. It usually went on the air sooner than other Quebec stations, forcing it to fill the schedule with local shows. La Tribune was eventually acquired by Power Corporation of Canada, which sold CHLT to Telemedia in 1968.

When CKSH-TV went on the air in 1974, it took all SRC programming away from CHLT. Sherbrooke's anglophone population was too small for CHLT to be viable as a privately-owned CBC Television affiliate. As a result, it joined TVA later in the year after CBMT in Montreal opened a translator in Sherbrooke. Five years later, Pathonic Communications acquired CHLT and four other stations from Telemedia. Pathonic's stations aired a schedule radically different from that offered on TVA flagship CFTM-TV in Montreal. As a result, since CHLT's over-the-air signal reaches Montreal, it was carried on CF Cable and Vidéotron in that city.

However, CFTM's owner, Télé-Metropole, bought full control of TVA in 1990. Since then, CHLT has been basically a semi-satellite of CFTM, except for newscasts and commercials. CF Cable stopped carrying CHLT in the early 1990s, and Vidéotron followed suit in 1995.

CHLT is one of TVA's most powerful stations; its terrestrial footprint extends as far as northwestern Maine.

External links

• TVA Sherbrooke
• Canadian Communications Foundation - CHLT-TV History
• Query the REC's Canadian station database for CHLT-TV
• Query TV Fool's coverage map for CHLT