Early history The predecessor of Fairchild Television was
Chinavision, a Toronto-based company. In 1983, the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced that it was considering issuing a national Chinese pay television license. Four organizations competed for the license, including World View Television, which had been granted a regional minority pay television license in British Columbia in 1982, and Chinavision, founded by Francis Cheung. Chinavision won the license in 1984 and began broadcasting in the same year. At that time, it broadcast seven days a week, eight hours a day (17:00 to 01:00 the next morning). Given that Chinavision was in its infancy at that time, the authorities believed that the Vancouver area could not support two competing Chinese television stations. Therefore, they added a clause to the license of Chinavision restricting it from broadcasting in British Columbia for two years after its launch, so that World Television (later reorganized into Cathay Television in 1985) could maintain its status as the only Chinese television station in British Columbia. The authorities later lifted the broadcasting restrictions on Chinavision in 1987, and the station was able to receive broadcasts in British Columbia from then on. Chinavision at that time was dedicated to rebroadcasting programs from Hong Kong's
Asia Television, while Cathay Television was dedicated to rebroadcasting programs from Hong Kong's
TVB. The financial situation of Chinavision has been poor since its launch. By 1992, it was in debt of about 8 million to 10 million Canadian dollars. In the same year, the Ontario court ordered the creditors to take over the company changed the management.
Fairchild takeover In 1992,
Fairchild Group owned by Vancouver-based Chinese businessman
Thomas Fung, together with TVB, announced a joint investment of $9.25 million to acquire the assets of Chinavision and $3.8 million to acquire Cathay Television. The two transactions were approved by the CRTC in October and December of 1993 respectively, and the two stations were subsequently reorganized: the national television license originally belonging to Chinavision was reorganized into Fairchild Television, while the regional television license originally belonging to Cathay Television was reorganized into
Talentvision. After the national broadcasting was implemented on July 2 of the same year, except for the advertising period, the content of the Vancouver signal was the same as that of the Toronto signal, only delayed by three hours due to the time difference between the two cities, and the production and broadcasting of news programs were also changed accordingly. (See
Fairchild TV News). In 2003, the station applied to the CRTC for a license renewal and also requested the authorities to amend the license terms to allow partial broadcasting. The application was approved in 2004, and the news program resumed partial broadcasting in the fall of the same year. ==Operations==