CBC and CTV affiliation The station first signed on the air on December 1, 1956. Originally operating as a
CBC affiliate, it was founded by David Armstrong, owner of local radio station CKDA (1220 AM, now
CJZN-FM on 91.3); Armstrong originally applied to assign the CKTV call letters for the station, which was changed to CHEK-TV prior to the station's sign-on. Its original studio facilities were located on Epsom Drive in
Saanich. Initially, the radio and television stations shared staff such as Andy Steven (who was CHEK's first
news director) and Keith MacKenzie (who served as its sports director). CHEK was the only local television station that operated on
Vancouver Island for many years, until
CHUM Limited signed on
CIVI-TV (channel 53) in October 2001. The station was the first (and is currently the oldest) privately owned television station in British Columbia. Only CBC
owned-and-operated station CBUT-DT (channel 2) in
Vancouver has been on the air longer, having signed on in December 1953. In 1963, the station was purchased by businessman
Frank Griffiths, who also owned Vancouver
CTV affiliate
CHAN-TV (channel 8, now a
Global owned-and-operated station). By September of that year, CHEK's schedule consisted of some CTV programming and simulcasts of CHAN-originated shows mixed in with the CBC network schedule, along with CHEK-based local productions and
syndicated programs not aired on CHAN; this setup continued into the late 1960s and early 1970s, when CHAN started to timeshift network programs. CHEK would also air CBC programs during the afternoon and primetime while running CTV shows such as
University of the Air and
Canada AM in the morning (simulcast with CHAN). In 1972, CHEK, which had simulcast CHAN's
News Hour since the Griffiths purchase (and would continue to do so until 2001), began producing its own news program,
News Hour Vancouver Island. It aired at 5:30 p.m. before the CHAN
News Hour simulcast (in some cases, CHAN's
News Hour would only be broadcast on CHEK due to other programming commitments, primarily
Vancouver Canucks hockey), and at 11:15 p.m. following CBC's
The National. From 1975 to 1976 and again from 1983 to 1986, CHEK used the same
Pacific dogwood logo as CHAN; in both cases, they later reverted to using their own logo. Beginning around the 1978–79 television season, CHEK gradually added more CTV programs during the prime time hours (which were timeshifted from their airings on CHAN). On January 5, 1981, when CBUT launched repeater stations in
Sooke and
Mount Macdonald, CHEK disaffiliated from CBC and became a full-time CTV station. In 1982,
Western International Communications (WIC) acquired a 59% interest in CHEK and CHAN. WIC bought the remaining 41% interest from
Selkirk Communications in 1989, when that company sold most of its broadcasting assets. In 1984, CHEK moved its operations from its original studios in Saanich to its present location at 780 Kings Road; the studio facility had originally been built to house a
planned CBC Television station for Victoria, but budget cuts caused the plans to be shelved and then canceled. Until 2001, CHEK also broadcast many of the same programs as CHAN on a timeshifted basis; as with CHAN, this consisted of a mixture of CTV network programming and WIC-owned programming (usually drawn from the schedule of
CHCH in
Hamilton), although the WIC programming usually differed from that aired on CHAN. The launch of
Baton Broadcasting-owned
CIVT (channel 32) in 1997 further complicated the distribution of CTV network programming in southwestern British Columbia, with CIVT becoming the area's third station (after CHAN and CHEK) to carry CTV programming. However, after CHAN strengthened its own morning newscast around 2000, CHEK became the only station in the province that aired
Canada AM, as CIVT aired its own local morning news program.
Canwest takes ownership . CHEK came under the ownership of
Canwest Global Communications in 2000 after that company acquired Western International Communications. This acquisition set off a
major affiliation switch among the Vancouver–Victoria market's television stations in 2001, with both CHEK and CHAN disaffiliating from CTV, and CIVT becoming the sole CTV station in British Columbia. CHAN and CHEK's affiliation agreements with CTV were originally due to end in 2000; they were extended to expire on September 1, 2001, in view of the uncertainty surrounding the local media landscape. After disaffiliating from CTV, CHEK became part of Canwest's new
CH system. It rebranded as "CH Vancouver Island", and took on a schedule similar to that of Hamilton sister CHCH. CHEK aired 15 to 20 hours of local news programming each week, and often programs that were usually shown on CHAN were moved to accommodate its news programming. It also took the sports highlight and discussion program
Sports Page from former Global owned-and-operated station
CKVU (channel 10); however, CHAN continued to produce the program until its cancellation in September 2005. CHEK celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006; as part of the celebration, it aired vignettes of past station promos from the pre-CH era during commercial breaks. Another short vignette was also introduced consisting of CHEK's logos and station IDs through the years, from its original logo in 1956 to its then-current logo as "CH Vancouver Island". On September 7, 2007, the station's newscasts were retitled
CHEK News, a partial reversal of the current trend for Canadian television networks and systems to solely use their branding for their owned-and-operated stations, as a result of the rebranding of CH to E!. Programming on CHEK outside local newscasts were branded simply as "E!". On January 3, 2009, CHEK began simulcasting CHAN's broadcast of
Global National at 5:30 p.m., the first time that CHEK had simulcast its former sister station's programming since the September 2001 affiliation switch.
Threatened closure; ownership by CHEK Media Group On February 5, 2009, Canwest announced it would explore "strategic options", including a possible sale of the stations, for CHEK and its other E! owned-and-operated stations, on the basis that "a second conventional TV network [was] no longer key to the long-term success" of the company. On July 22, 2009, after failing to find a buyer, Canwest announced it would be shutting down CHEK on August 31, 2009, issuing layoff notices to the station's staff. This would have resulted in CIVI-TV becoming the only remaining television station to serve the Victoria area. Shortly after the announcement was made, CHEK employees announced a proposal to acquire a 25% interest in the station and find local investors to acquire the remaining 75%, and organized a campaign to support the plan and save channel 6. On August 27, 2009, station employees announced that they had raised $2.5 million for the buyout plan; however, the following day, Canwest announced that the employee buyout did not meet company guidelines to keep the station on the air, and that the station had no programming and advertising lined up beyond August 31, at which date Canwest would permanently shut down the station. CHEK would have closed down following the late newscast that night, after a retrospective on the station's history. However, on August 31, 2009, during its 5 p.m. newscast, the station announced that its shutdown would be put on hold, and that it would continue broadcasting while negotiations between Canwest and the prospective new owners continued. Facing a new deadline of September 4, Canwest announced on that date that it had reached a deal to sell the station to CHEK's employees and several local investors, through a consortium known as CHEK Media Group, for $2. Canwest would continue to provide transitional support for CHEK, including providing certain programming, allowing the use of its Vancouver studios, and leasing, at "favourable rates," the 780 Kings Road studios to the new owners with the assumption of various station liabilities. The sale was approved by the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on November 9. After the sale's announcement, station manager John Pollard revealed to
CBC News that CHEK would operate as an independent station (one of two such stations in Canada that began as a CBC Television affiliate, and then later a CTV affiliate, alongside
CJON-DT in
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador), with no plans to simulcast any American programs. CHEK Media Group took control of the station's programming on that date the station also disaffiliated from E! (which shut down a few days prior), and adopted a new schedule that included a mix of movies and older programming (both Canadian and American in origin), syndicated programming and a greater emphasis on local newscasts (including a new 10 p.m. newscast that debuted on September 1), and reverted to branding itself as simply "CHEK". The station later reversed its stance on running recent American programs; in September 2010, CHEK, for the first time since it came under the employee/investor control, began airing American network television series. Many of the programs that were added to the schedule (including
Smallville,
Supernatural,
Jimmy Kimmel Live!,
Chuck and
60 Minutes) were previously carried in the Vancouver–Victoria market on
CHNU-DT (channel 66) and on cable through Toronto/Hamilton independent station
CKXT-TV (that station's owner,
Quebecor, was in the process of replacing that station's licence with one for an
all-news cable channel; Quebecor shut down the station and relinquished the CKXT license to the CRTC in 2011). The station also acquired
I Hate Hollywood, produced by CHCH-DT, which picked up all of the mentioned programs. On January 25, 2013, CHEK began sharing space with the local
CBC Radio One station
CBCV-FM, which migrated its operations into the television station's Kings Road studios. ==Programming==