CHCH-DT

CHCH-DT (channel 11) is an independent television station in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Owned by Channel Zero, the station maintains studios on Innovation Drive in the west end of Hamilton; prior to 2021, it was located near the corner of Jackson and Caroline streets in downtown Hamilton for nearly 65 years. The station has additional offices at the Marriott on the Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Its old transmitter was located on First Road West in the former city of Stoney Creek; it was demolished in March 2024 and replaced with a new transmitter located on Highway 5 near Millgrove Side Road in Dundas, Ontario, which started transmitting in November 2023.

CHCH signed on the air on June 7, 1954, as a CBC affiliate which was founded by Ken Soble. Beginning in 1961, it became an independent station which transformed into a national superstation on January 1, 1982. In 1990, the station was acquired by Western International Communications.

After several years as an independent station, CHCH was acquired by Canwest in 2000 and became the flagship station for the CH programming service as sister to the flagship CIII-TV of the Global Television Network. In 2007, the CH stations were rebranded to E! after an American cable network of the same name. When Canwest had financial problems, CHCH as well as Montreal's CJNT-TV was acquired by independent broadcaster Channel Zero in 2009. It changed its format to an all-news and all-movies station. In 2010, the station again began to air U.S. prime time programming.

The station signed on the air on June 7, 1954, operating as an affiliate of CBC Television. Its studios at 163 Jackson Street West were previously used by CJSH-FM (102.9, now CKLH-FM). After CJSH's shutdown, its studios were converted for CHCH. It is the oldest privately owned television station in the Hamilton–Toronto area. At the time all privately owned television stations in Canada were required to be CBC affiliates. CHCH-TV was founded by Ken Soble, a leader of Hamilton's urban renewal movement and the owner of radio station CHML (900 AM).

In 1961, CHCH left the CBC and became an independent station. There were three reasons for removing its affiliation from CBC. Hamilton is part of the Toronto market, and Toronto-based CBLT already provided full network service to some of CHCH's viewing area. CBLT planned to increase its transmitter power and change frequencies (from VHF channel 9 to channel 6, and eventually channel 5), resulting in a near-100 percent overlap with CHCH. The station's managers wanted to produce more local programming, instead of having to carry CBC programming.

CHCH became the first and for over a decade the only television station in Canada not to be affiliated with any network; the other private stations (which signed on the air in 1960 or early 1961) that were not affiliated with the CBC had formed the CTV network in October 1961.

In the mid-1960s, CHCH was the lead station in United Program Purchase, a consortium of Canadian television stations which began purchasing some programming rights separately from the CTV and CBC networks.

By 1966, UPP was attracting media coverage as the potential framework for a third Canadian television network. In the fall of the same year, Soble's Niagara Television which was the licensee of CHCH, put forward a proposal for a network to be branded as NTV. In the original plan, CHCH would have been the network's flagship station for the Greater Toronto Area. However the application faced numerous regulatory hurdles and delays, and its main financial backer which was Power Corporation of Canada, backed out in 1969. By 1970 however, the network application was revived by former CHCH executive Al Bruner's new Global Communications corporation, with Niagara Television and CHCH no longer involved in the bid. The Global Television Network launched in 1974 on the new CKGN-TV.