KCND-TV
- For the existing public radio station in Bismarck, North Dakota, please see KCND.
 | |
| Winnipeg | |
|---|---|
| City of license | Pembina, North Dakota |
| Slogan | "Your Good Neighbor Station" ("Serving Manitoba, Minnesota and North Dakota") |
| Channels | Analog: 12 (VHF) |
| Affiliations |
defunct (off the air on September 1, 1975) |
| Owner |
Community Radio Corp. (1960–1962) Pembina Broadcasting Co. (1962–1966) McLendon Corporation (1966–1975) |
| Founded | November 7, 1960 |
| Last air date | September 1, 1975 |
| Call letters' meaning |
K Canada and North Dakota (Pembina is located near the United States–Canada border) |
| Former affiliations |
ABC (secondary, 1960–1975) NBC (secondary, 1960–1967) |
KCND-TV was a television station located in Pembina, North Dakota, USA with sales and production facilities[1] also located at 2031 Portage Avenue in Winnipeg, Canada. KCND-TV was established by the Community Radio Corporation, the parent company of KNOX-TV and KNOX AM in Grand Forks, N.D., after being granted a construction permit by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in July 1956.[2] The station's plans were publicly announced in early 1959,[3] and KCND-TV signed on November 7, 1960[4] on channel 12.
History
Startup preparations for the station began in March 1959, at an estimated cost of $150,000 according to Community Radio Corporation partner Robert Lukkason. The station was initially expected to be a "branch" of KNOX-TV in Grand Forks (now defunct), but would have its own studios.[5]
KCND's original construction permit was based on plans to operate from a 310-foot (94-metre) tower with a power of 21,000 watts. However, this plan changed and one of the tallest broadcast towers in North America was constructed—1,450 feet—100 feet short of the height of the Empire State Building in New York City. The tower was located seven miles west of Pembina and less than a half-mile south of the Canada-U.S. border. The station initially operated at a power of 220,000 watts,[6] later increasing power to 288,000 watts.[7]
KCND operated as a semi-independent station. It was affiliated with both NBC and ABC for periods, but was not compensated by the networks due to the station's minimal U.S. audience[8] and thus never showed all of either network's schedule. It carried The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson until 1967 when then-NBC affiliate WDAY-TV in Fargo opened a satellite station, WDAZ-TV in Devils Lake/Grand Forks, which served the northern part of the Red River Valley. KCND also had offices and production facilities on Portage Avenue in Winnipeg.
According to searches in the Winnipeg Free Press, "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" ended on Friday, September 2, 1966 on KCND-TV and was replaced by "The Merv Griffin Show" on the following Monday, September 5. Both Carson's and Griffin's shows began at 11:15 CDT.
In 1962, KCND-TV was acquired along with KNOX-TV Grand Forks and KXGO-TV Fargo for $675,200 by the Pembina Broadcasting Company, a group led by Ferris Traylor, the part-owner of an Indiana TV station.[9]
In November 1963, KCND-TV added an additional microwave relay path to Minneapolis via Fargo, to help provide a good quality signal if the primary link was experiencing "network trouble".[10] In addition to problems with the microwave relay system that forwarded network programming to the Pembina studio, KCND also suffered from spotty reception in Winnipeg, causing the station to struggle financially in its early years.[11] At one point, prior to the establishment of a city-wide cable TV system in Winnipeg, KCND resorted to giving away free rooftop aerials to Winnipeg residents.[12]
In 1966, the McLendon Corporation of Dallas, Tex. purchased KCND from the Pembina Broadcasting Company.[13] McLendon would remain the station's owner until its assets were sold to Canwest Broadcasting in 1975.
Soon after WDAZ-TV went on air in early 1967, KCND lost its NBC affiliation. Thereafter, it carried about half of the ABC primetime lineup (which was in those days was a distant third among the U.S. networks in the ratings) and showed low-budget syndicated programming (e.g., series like Felony Squad that had run for one or two seasons years earlier) and movies the rest of the time.
Relocation and Rebranding as CKND Winnipeg
In early 1973, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced it had received two applications to start a new commercial television station in Winnipeg, one from Western Manitoba Broadcasters Ltd., the parent company of CKX-TV in Brandon, Manitoba, and the other from Continental Communications, represented by Ray Peters, the president of CHAN-TV in Vancouver, B.C.[14]
The CRTC held public hearings in Winnipeg in May 1974 to determine which of the three competing applicants should be granted a licence. Though Continental Communications had withdrawn its application by this stage, Western Manitoba Broadcasters had been joined in the competition for the licence by Canwest Broadcasting, which proposed acquiring KCND's assets and relocating the station to Winnipeg, and by Communications Winnipeg Co-Op, which proposed a not-for-profit, member-supported station.[15]
The Canadian government was displeased with the existence of "border stations" which, while nominally American, existed primarily to broadcast U.S. content into major Canadian markets in competition with local broadcasters (and without the Canadian content that Canadian TV stations were and are required by law to provide). Accordingly, the government amended the Income Tax Act to curtail the tax deductibility of advertising expenditures incurred by Canadian businesses in the U.S. media, while the CRTC prepared to implement a "simultaneous substitution" policy which would require cable TV systems to carry the Canadian signal on both channels whenever the same program was being shown on both a Canadian and American station at the same time.[16] In the case of KCND, this measure threatened to eliminate the significant portion of its advertising revenue that originated in Winnipeg and bring about the demise of the station.
Canwest was awarded the licence in September 1974[18] and took over possession and day-to-day management of KCND on March 31, 1975.[19] The McLendon Corporation remained in possession of KCND's U.S. broadcasting licence until shortly after the station went off the air in September 1975 in order to remain in compliance with U.S. television station ownership regulations.[20]
Consolidation of KCND's Pembina, N.D. and Winnipeg, Man. studios at a new, larger facility at 603 St. Mary's Road in Winnipeg began in the spring of 1975.[19] The station's 17 Winnipeg employees had all agreed as of late May 1975 to stay on with CKND, as the Winnipeg-based station was to be called, after the transition. Few of the 22 U.S.-based employees were retained, however, though all had been offered employment in Canada.[21]
A CKND mobile production van functioned as KCND's master control system during August 1975, allowing vital equipment to be uninstalled in Pembina and then re-installed in Winnipeg without putting the station off the air.[22] CKND's decision to broadcast from an antenna mounted on the CBC tower near Starbuck, Man.,[22] instead of building its own tower near Sanford, Man. as originally planned,[23] also allowed for continuity during the transition.
KCND-TV's signal on Winnipeg's cable systems went off for the final time on August 31, 1975 at 8:30 p.m., following the 7 p.m. movie, The Thrill of It All. The transmitter remained on the air, simulcasting CKND, until the following afternoon. CKND-TV signed on for the first time at 9:00 p.m. on over-the-air channel 9 and cable channel 12 with the program Introducing CKND,[24] followed by the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, which began at 9:30 p.m. and was shown until Monday September 1 at 5:30 p.m.[25]
This was the beginning of Israel Asper's career as a media mogul of the Canwest empire, which culminated in his owning most of the large daily newspapers in Canada and TV stations in nearly every province.
Subsequent Pembina station
In May 1974, John Boler, the founder and then-owner of Valley City-Fargo, N.D. CBS affiliate KXJB-TV expressed his intention to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to apply for a licence to operate a Channel 12 television station at Pembina, N.D. if KCND-TV were to go off the air.[17] In 1981, about two years after selling KXJB, Boler and fellow investors J. L. Wood and Robert Alphson were awarded a licence to construct a station at Pembina operating at a power of 316,000 watts from a 857-foot tower.[26]
Initial plans were for the station to begin broadcasting in the summer of 1982, operating as a conventional television station during the day and as a pay-TV station offering commercial-free full-length movies after 7 p.m.[27] The introduction of pay TV in Canada shortly thereafter, and poor consumer uptake for early Canadian pay TV outlets such as the short-lived C Channel, convinced the investors that a pay TV station broadcasting into Canada from Pembina, N.D. would not be viable,[28] and the construction permit was transferred to the Boler-owned Fargo Broadcasting Corporation, operators of Fargo, N.D. independent station KVRR, in mid-1985.[29] The station's proposed call letters were changed from KWBA to KNRR in September 1985.[30]
KNRR signed on Jan. 1, 1986 and became affiliated with the Fox television network as a full satellite of KVRR in Fargo.[31] Canadian broadcast regulators, concerned that KNRR planned to compete directly with Canadian TV stations for audience share and local advertising dollars as KCND had done, refused to authorize either KNRR or its sister stations for distribution on Canadian cable systems, limiting KNRR to a very small Canadian audience.[32][33]
Logos
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KCND-TV logo early 1960s
-
KCND logo early 1970s
KCND-TV personalities
- Dick Vincent – on-air host during the whole history of the station. He would later move to CKND along with the station. Previously worked as an announcer on CJOB.
- Sharon McRae - on-air announcer and weather girl during the Johnny Carson Show, hostess with Dick Vincent, on "Around The Country." Previously worked at CKRC Radio, and was married to Bill Edmondson, the drummer of "The Squires" formed by Neil Young in the 1960s.
- Boyd Jerome (Boyd Christenson) - Pembina-based announcer, program host and manager, 1960-64. Known by his first and middle names while at KCND, as it was thought that "Christenson" might be too difficult for Canadian viewers to pronounce.[11] Later known by his full name during his years at WDAY-TV Fargo, Prairie Public Television and KFGO Fargo.
References
- ↑ Winnipeg Free Press, Dec. 10, 1966, p. 33
- ↑ 1959 Broadcasting Yearbook, p. B-62
- ↑ "Outside aerial needed". Winnipeg Tribune. February 20, 1959.
- ↑ "Pembina on the air". Winnipeg Tribune. November 7, 1960.
- ↑ "TV Shows Soon From Across Border". Winnipeg Tribune. March 13, 1959. p. 1.
- ↑ Broadcasting, Vol. 61 No. 3 (July 17, 1961), p. 103
- ↑ Broadcasting Yearbook 1966, p. A-40
- ↑ "CKND's five-year record". Winnipeg Free Press - TV Times. August 9, 1980.
- ↑ Broadcasting, Vol. 63, p. xlviii
- ↑ Noble, Bob (November 16, 1963). "KCND Trouble Shooting". Winnipeg Free Press - TV-Radio.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Winnipeg Free Press, Oct. 2, 1981, p. 22
- ↑ Winnipeg Free Press, July 8, 1967
- ↑ Ronald Garay, "Gordon McLendon: The Maverick of Radio". Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, p. 98.
- ↑ Financial Post, Feb. 17, 1973, p. C5
- ↑ Winnipeg Free Press, May 15, 1974
- ↑ "Culture war sees cable stripping U.S. ads", Regina Leader-Post, Nov. 14, 1975, p. 6
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Winnipeg Free Press, May 16, 1974
- ↑ "Challenges face new station", Winnipeg Tribune, Sept. 21, 1974, p. 5
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 "1st TV Independent Goes On Air Sept. 1", Winnipeg Free Press, March 15, 1975
- ↑ Broadcasting Magazine, Jan. 6, 1975, p. 19
- ↑ "Canadians promised jobs", Winnipeg Tribune, May 28, 1975
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 Winnipeg Free Press, Aug. 30, 1975, p. 12
- ↑ Broadcasting Magazine, Jan. 20, 1975, p. 19
- ↑ Radio-Info: "Retro: Winnipeg • Sunday, August 31, 1975", July 17, 2010. (Source: Winnipeg Free Press (August 30, 1975 Edition))
- ↑ Dulmage, Bill (January 2007). "Television Station History:CKND". Canadian Communications Foundation. Retrieved 2007-09-02.
- ↑ Broadcasting, Vol. 101 No. 3 (July 20, 1981), p. 61
- ↑ Regina Leader-Post (April 1, 1982). "More TV for southern Manitoba". p. C4. Retrieved June 25, 2011.
- ↑ Winnipeg Free Press, Sept. 21, 1985, p. 21
- ↑ FCC File BAPCT-19850513KE, disposed July 19, 1985
- ↑ FCC call sign history search for "KNRR", accessed 2010-12-31
- ↑ "New U.S. station riles CKND". Winnipeg Free Press. July 20, 1985.
- ↑ Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Decision 86-1006, dated Oct. 9, 1986.
- ↑ Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Decision 94-793, dated Sept. 29, 1994.
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