SIXTY YEARS - Part 1

It's hard to believe that sixty years since CFPL-TV first signed on the air, have gone by so fast. For those of us who where there on that first day - November 28, 1953 - we've witnessed the rise of one of Canada's most respected TV stations, only to watch it's loss of respectability over the past twenty years.

On November 1 of that year, Tom Ashwell, Tom Trowell, Keven Knight, Dale Duffield, Jim Plan, Bill Nunn and Glen Robitaille and I, all moved from CFPL Radio to the television building which was still under construction. We cleaned, helped install equipment, hung lights, edited movies and made coffee. In the following weeks we would add sales, writers and other office staff, making a total of twenty people on opening night.

A week before our sign-on date, the two Toms and I finally had a chance to "play" with the new studio cameras and microphone boom - my task. Other than that brief introduction to the new equipment we basically had  no idea of what we were doing. We just followed the script.

If opening night was an omen in the professionalism of  our News Department, we can be thankful for a destructive fire that night, at a local laundry and dry cleaning establishment. We were nearing the end of our opening ceremony when we received a call that the Dutch Laundry was being destroyed by a huge fire. Our news cameramen, (News Director Ron Laidlaw, Jack Schenck and Ken Dougan both Free Press photographers) rushed to the scene, shot their film and returned to the station.. Twenty minutes later we had the story on the air. 

From that point on, News was our anchor. We provided local as well as national news through our "live" 6 pm and 11 pm newscasts. Eventually, we added News at Noon and made all newscast one hour long. We had our own film lab which allowed us to shoot local and district news events, process the stories and have them on air the same evening, or in some cases within an hour of their happenings.

From its early beginnings CFPL-TV was a community station, designing all of it's programming to the needs and entertainment of our viewers, many of whom only had U.S. programs received by cable or their own roof-top antennas. 

We had shows for women, At Home with Mary Ashwell and Hope Garber; The Roy Jewell Farm Show for our rural viewers, and Matinee Tele-quiz for our afternoon movie watchers.

Movies were a big item back then. We had a large variety of westerns, British comedies, (remember George Formby?) along with   mysteries, and musicals. All pretty old, but still entertaining.

With the advent of Microwave, we were able to add CBC programming including NHL and a variety of their drama and entertainment shows. 

As our popularity continued to grow, we kept adding newer programs all aimed to the interest of our viewers throughout Southwestern Ontario.  By the fall of 1954 our staff had grown from 20 to 50 .

Our first outside remote occurred in Nov. 1959.  Soapbox Rodeo was an instant success and continued for several years. We used out long quarter mile driveway as the race course. An elevated starting ramp at the top of the driveway provided a good start for the long ride to the finish line at Commissioners Rd. The winner at the end of the competition was awarded a handsome trophy. We had to discontinue the races when that large tact of land in front of the station was sold for a subdivision which eventually sprouted , surrounding the station.

In 1956 CFPL-TV was the first station in Canada to be given permission to experiment in color. We  had purchased a new Philco CineScanner film chain, but could only use it in house. However, that restriction was lifted in 1966 and we were able to broadcast color movies to our audience. 1970 brought color throughout Canada but without color studio cameras we were still limited to only airing film.  All three of our daily newscasts were now featuring color film stories.

By 1958 our staff had grown to 100. (not all shown here) We were now on the air for 13 hours a day.

A year later we were the first "private" station to install and use video tape, and in 1962 we began using our new 1000 foot tower and boosted our power to 325,000 watts.

For the next few years we seemed to spend as much time outside the studio as we did inside. We covered the Western Fair for the Farm Show, plus having our own static display inside one of the buildings, were we used one of the studio cameras to pan the Fair visitors s they walked by. A few years later  we moved into a theater in one of the buildings and did several shows as Act Fast and Romper Room, involving the adult and children audiences.

We changed venues several times with live studio shows featuring music, talent hunts, pet shows, and comedy. Mustn't forget the several quiz shows we did for the ladies. 

The YMAC Auction was a staple for years. We also produced several dramas featuring local talent. Our remotes covered golf, curling, and bowling  tournaments. 

In 1965, in co-operation with the University of Western Ontario, Producer Jim Plant along with Drs. Jack Thurlow and Peter Rechnitzer began producing a series of medical shows for London and district hospitals. They would eventually be seem world wide.

In 1971 we purchased Wingham's CKNX-TV and AM stations.

1983 without any network (CBC) assistance, we began our early morning (7:30 to 8:00 am) news program.

After a long and testy review by the CRTC, it was determined that ownership of the TV station by the Blackburns, who also owned the London Free Press, CFPL RADIO AM and FM, was not a conflict and that the coverage area for all media was well served by London Free Press Holdings. Perhaps as a peace offering for the lengthy and troublesome review, the CRTC renewed the licences for all of the CFPL media for five years.

Sadly, on December 16, 1983 Walter J. Blackburn died. 

In April 1984 we began microwaving originating  programs from CFPL-TV to Wingham-TV. 

Since it's inception in 1953, CFPL-TV was housed in a 30,000 sq. foot building. Within the next five years we had outgrown it, and a small addition was added on the east end for more offices, and storage. Eventually, this section was made into a second studio, then for an enlarged news room, but not before a large addition to the south-west was added to accommodate our ever increasing inventory of props in 1962.

This addition also included a roomy workshop for construction of all of those props, plus a hermetically enclosed VTR room for three VTR machines, and video tape inventory.

Leaping ahead to early 1984, the small News Dept. in the basement was bursting at the seams and with the advent of Beta cameras and tape fast approaching. Construction began on a large new area to the east end of the station. When finished, news would have 2500 sq. feet for reporters, editing suites, offices and a new news set, using the actual news room as a backdrop. With these new digs, we became the first Canadian TV news operation to computerize its news programming. 

Part 2 on the way