Omni Television (stylized as OMNI Television) is a Canadian television system and group of specialty channels owned by Rogers Sports & Media, a subsidiary of Rogers Communications. It currently consists of all six of Canada's conventional multicultural television stations, which are located in Ontario (two stations), British Columbia, Alberta (two stations), and an affiliate in Quebec. The system's flagship station is CFMT in Toronto, which was the first independent multicultural television station in Canada.
The Omni brand was first introduced in 2002 after Rogers launched a second station in Toronto, CJMT; the two stations were collectively branded as Omni Television, with CJMT branding as "Omni.2" and focusing on programs targeting Asian and African communities, and CFMT "Omni.1" focusing on targeting the European and Caribbean communities. The Omni brand expanded outside of Toronto for the first time in 2005, with Rogers' acquisition of religious independent stations in Vancouver and Winnipeg.
In 2007, Rogers secured new multicultural licenses in Calgary and Edmonton, announced its sale of the Vancouver and Winnipeg stations to S-VOX, and then acquired Vancouver's existing multicultural station CHNM. In 2012, Omni added an affiliate in Montreal via the new multicultural station CFHD-DT, with Rogers agreeing to help support the station in exchange for relieving CJNT of its own multicultural remit.
Since September 2017, Omni began to be distributed throughout the remainder of the country, as a group of specialty channels with mandatory carriage. This group is licensed under the blanket name Omni Regional; Rogers argued that revenue from mandatory carriage was necessary to restore and sustain the stations' local programming. Originally licensed by the CRTC on a three-year interim basis while the commission considered alternative proposals for a national multicultural channel, the Commission ultimately chose to re-licence Omni Regional until at least 2023, on the basis of commitments to expanded Canadian programming production.
Etymology Derived from the Latin word "omnis" meaning "all", "Omni" is not an acronym, although the name is written all in capital letters.Network Style Guide ( Archive)
History
Toronto's CFMT-TV launched in 1979 as Canada's first multilingual/multicultural television station, owned by Multilingual Television (Toronto) Ltd. The station was originally referred to as "MTV" before using its call letters to identify on-air in 1981 due to confusion with the American music video channel. As its initial format was 100% ethnic, the station experienced financial difficulties, and was on the verge of bankruptcy when Rogers stepped in and purchased it in 1986. Rogers then attempted to launch a similar multicultural station in Vancouver in 1996,Decision CRTC 97-39, January 31, 1997 - CIVT-DT (now a CTV station) was licensed instead. 1999Decision CRTC 2000-219, July 6, 2000 - CIVI-TV and CHNU-TV were licensed. and 2002,Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2002-39, February 14, 2002 - CHNM-TV was licensed. but all three attempts were rejected by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). It was, however, given a second multicultural licence in Toronto to provide room for additional multicultural programing,Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2002-82, April 8, 2002 and launched CJMT-TV as a sister station to CFMT in fall 2002. It was at this point that the "OMNI Television" brand was introduced, with CFMT and CJMT branded as "OMNI.1" and "OMNI.2" respectively.
The Omni brand was expanded in 2005, when Rogers acquired two religious TV stations, CHNU-TV in the Vancouver market and CIIT-TV in Winnipeg, from Trinity Television. CHNU was rebranded from "NOWTV" to "OMNI.10" in September 2005, while CIIT went on air as "OMNI.11" on February 6, 2006.
2007 realignment
Several proposed changes to the Omni system were announced, either by Rogers or by the CRTC, during a one-month span from June to July 2007. First, on June 8, the CRTC granted Rogers licences to operate new multicultural stations in Calgary and Edmonton, beating out a competing proposal from Multivan Broadcast Corporation (which won the bid for the Vancouver multicultural licence in 2002 against Rogers and launched CHNM-TV).
On June 28, 2007, Rogers made public its offer to sell the religious-licensed Omni stations in Winnipeg and Vancouver as part of its contemporaneous purchase of Citytv (which the CRTC ordered CTVglobemedia to sell them off as part of the CHUM Limited takeover deal). Rogers indicated, however, that it viewed retaining the multilingual licences in Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton (effectively creating twinsticks in those three markets) as compatible with CRTC policy, since they are licensed to serve a different programming niche than the general interest Citytv stations.Rogers offers to sell two stations , Grant Robertson, The Globe and Mail, June 28, 2007
On July 7, Rogers announced an agreement to purchase the aforementioned CHNM, finally securing a true multicultural television licence in Vancouver.Rogers Media to Acquire Vancouver's 'Channel M' From Multivan Broadcast Corporation, Rogers press release, July 6, 2007 The fact that Rogers had acquired the Calgary and Edmonton multicultural licences, beating out Multivan's competing applications, was cited as a major reason for the sale.
On September 28, the CRTC approved Rogers' takeover of the Citytv stations, giving the company one year to divest itself of the religious Omni stations. A tentative deal to sell the stations to S-VOX, owner of VisionTV, was announced on November 6. On March 31, 2008, the CRTC approved both Rogers' acquisition of CHNMCRTC Decision 2008-72. and its sale of CIIT and CHNU to S-VOX.CRTC Decision 2008-71. CHNU was rebranded as "CHNU 10" on October 31, 2007, a year before the Omni brand was transferred to CHNM. CIIT was rebranded "CIIT11" in July 2008, after S-VOX took control of the station. Both stations rebranded as Joytv on September 1, 2008; CHNM rebranded as "Omni BC" on the same date. The two new stations in Calgary and Edmonton launched on September 15, 2008 under the call letters CJCO and CJEO.
Partnership with ICI Montreal, cutbacks
Rogers announced an agreement to acquire the one Canadian multicultural television station it did not already own, CJNT-DT Montreal on May 3, 2012,Citytv expanding into Quebec & Western Canada , CityNews, May 3, 2012. from Channel Zero, after having passed on the opportunity when the station was previously put up for sale in 2009 by Canwest during its financial difficulties.Grant Robertson, "CanWest puts E! up for sale" . The Globe and Mail, February 6, 2009 While intending to relaunch it as a Citytv station, Rogers did not rule out the possibility of requesting that CJNT be re-licensed as an English-language station,Rogers Media buys Montreal TV station Metro 14, The Gazette, May 3, 2012. but in the meantime CJNT aired Omni programs (including Omni News) to fulfill much of its ethnic programming requirements after it became affiliated with Citytv prior to the sale.New METRO14 Schedule Starting Monday , Channel Canada, June 1, 2012. As part of the sale, Rogers requested that the CRTC convert CJNT to an English-language station, on the condition that both Channel Zero and Rogers provide services and resources to CFHD-DT, International Channel/Canal International (ICI), a newly proposed, locally owned multicultural station. Both were approved by the CRTC on December 20, 2012.Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2012-697, December 20, 2012.Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2012-696, December 20, 2012. ICI officially launched on December 11, 2013.
In the mid-2010's, the Omni stations struggled financially; Rogers Media president Keith Pelley explained that between 2011 and 2014, advertising revenue had fallen from to . On May 30, 2013, Rogers announced the shutdown of production facilities at CJCO and CJEO, ending the production of local programming and news content from the Omni Alberta stations, and as a result, the discontinuation of the South Asian newscasts. On May 7, 2015, Rogers announced further cuts affecting Omni, including the re-structuring of the Omni News programs, the cancellation of V-Mix and Bollywood Boulevard, and the elimination of redundancy in technical staff between the Omni and Citytv stations.
Licensing as a must-carry specialty channel
On June 14, 2016, Rogers announced that it had submitted an application to the CRTC for a new, national specialty channel known as Omni Regional. The service would consist of four feeds; "Pacific", "Prairies", "East", and "ICI Quebec", which mirror the programming of the corresponding Omni Television O&O and affiliate stations in their respective regions (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal). The East feed specifically mirrors CJMT (Omni.2), which primarily focuses on the south and east Asian communities. CFMT (Omni.1), which focuses on European and Latin American communities, retains its existing distribution in southern and eastern Ontario. Rogers also sought 9(1)(h) must-carry status for the service.
Colette Watson, Rogers' vice president of television, stated that Omni Television was "not sustainable in its current state"; the company stated that must-carry status for the Omni Regional channels would result in an additional $14 million in annual revenue from carriage fees, which it planned to mostly invest into the production of daily half-hour national newscasts in the Cantonese, Italian, Mandarin, and Punjabi languages—programming that had been cancelled in 2015 in the previous round of cuts. Omni also pledged to increase its investments in original domestic content.
With reservations, CRTC approved Rogers' application for Omni Regional on May 15, 2017, and granted it must-carry status under a provisional three-year term. This requires the service to be offered on the lowest tier of service by all Canadian digital television providers. In regions where Omni already operates terrestrially, providers may be relieved from carrying the Omni Regional version of the service on their lineups, or vice versa. Omni Regional launched on September 1, 2017.
Call for applications and 2020 renewal In its approval, the CRTC felt that Omni Regional's business model was financially unsustainable, as there were no significant plans for new original programming beyond newscasts, and Rogers did not sufficiently demonstrate that the service would "ensure a sufficient reflection of Canada's third-language communities", as its structure did not sufficiently serve regions not currently served by an Omni station (such as Atlantic and Central Canada). As such, the CRTC recognized that there was "[an] exceptional need for a national, multilingual multi-ethnic programming service that can provide Canadians with news and current events programming in multiple languages from a Canadian perspective", and formally requested applications for a national, multicultural specialty service that would receive must-carry status.
The CRTC announced the eight applicants on April 17, 2018, which included competing proposals by companies such as Bell Media, the Corriere Canadese, and Ethnic Channels Group among others. Rogers proposed maintaining the existing Omni Regional structure, but with an increased investment in original scripted and factual programming, the addition of Arabic, Hindi, and Tagalog-language newscasts, local newscasts on the East, Pacific, and Prairies feeds in Mandarin and Punjabi, and a local newscast in Italian on the East feed (which would replace the Italian national newscast, as the majority of Canada's Italian population lives in Ontario and Quebec).