ON THIS DAY: Television comes to the Okanagan
Sept. 21, 1957
CHBC-TV hosts a community open house in 1958, a year after the Kelowna television station first went on the air.
Photo: Global News.
On Sept. 21, 1957, CHBC-TV went on the air in Kelowna, bringing local television broadcasting to central Okanagan at a time when only about 500 homes in the valley had television sets.
The Kelowna Daily Courier announced the arrival the day before with the declaration: “Television has come to the Okanagan Valley.” Its coverage introduced readers to the new medium with information about watching television and advertisements for where they could buy a set. One headline even pitched television as an answer to the “baby sitter problem.”
CHBC began broadcasting on Channel 2 with 3,700 watts, initially covering the central Okanagan. The mountainous terrain made wider coverage difficult, and rebroadcast transmitters in Vernon and Penticton followed three weeks later. Its studios and offices were housed in the converted Smith Garage in Kelowna, where the station began with a staff of 12.
The station grew out of an Okanagan partnership. The owners of three radio stations — CKOV in Kelowna, CKOK in Penticton and CJIB in Vernon — joined together in 1955 to form Okanagan Valley Television Co. Ltd. and establish a television station for the region.
CHBC signed on as a CBC affiliate, although network programming did not yet arrive live. CBC programs were sent to Kelowna on kinescope or 16 mm film, which meant regular programs could air a week after their original broadcasts. The National News arrived more quickly but still aired a day late. A microwave connection in 1960 finally allowed CHBC to carry live CBC network programming.
The station also had to make do with limited equipment in its early days. CHBC had ordered two studio cameras, but television equipment was in short supply as stations opened across North America. It operated for almost its first year with a single borrowed camera. Local programs were broadcast live and included Kids Bids, The Three R’s and Romper Room.
Television ownership in the Okanagan grew quickly after CHBC arrived. The roughly 500 homes with television receivers in September 1957 had become about 10,000 a year later.
CHBC remained a CBC affiliate for decades and was rebranded as Global Okanagan in 2009. On Sept. 21, 2017, the station marked its 60th anniversary with a live broadcast from Stuart Park in Kelowna.
Sixty-nine years after CHBC first went on the air, the newspaper coverage from September 1957 captures television at the point of arrival: instructions for watching it, advertisements for buying a set and a local newspaper telling Okanagan readers that television had come to the valley.
