The station first went on the air on October 1, 1961, as Edmonton's second television station; the previous CBC affiliate,
CFRN (channel 3), switched to the newly established
CTV on the same day. Initially, it was branded as "CBXT 5", or "Channel 5". After being known as "Edmonton/5" in the late 1970s, it became known as "XTV" in 1980. It reverted to the "Edmonton 5" brand in the mid-1980s and then, on January 1, 1986, became "CBC Television Edmonton". Its local newscasts were originally known as
Metro. When CBXT signed on, it was the first television station in Canada to use television cameras that could be remotely controlled from a control room, and did not need constant adjustment. In 2004, the CBC's Edmonton operations moved into a new digital broadcast facility downtown, bringing all operations of radio and television, under one roof. The old television facility on 75th Street was , while the radio building on 51st Avenue was . The new combined facility at the
Edmonton City Centre totals . At the same time, master control was consolidated with those of
CBRT in
Calgary into a single facility based at the CBC Studios in Calgary. When
Red Deer's CKRD disaffiliated from CBC Television in 2005 (switching to
E!, reverting to its original calls
CHCA-TV), CBXT was given control of the transmitter in
Coronation, Alberta (CKRD-1) on channel 10. CBXT added a transmitter on channel 22 in Red Deer, broadcasting the full CBXT/CBC schedule to Red Deer and Central Alberta. == News operation ==