Omni Television (stylized as OMNI Television) is a Canadian television system and group of specialty channels owned by Rogers Sports & Media, a subsidiary of Rogers Communications. It currently consists of all six of Canada's conventional multicultural television stations, which are located in Ontario (two stations), British Columbia, Alberta (two stations), and an affiliate in Quebec. The system's flagship station is CFMT in Toronto, which was the first independent multicultural television station in Canada.
The Omni brand was first introduced in 2002 after Rogers launched a second station in Toronto, CJMT; the two stations were collectively branded as Omni Television, with CJMT branding as "Omni.2" and focusing on programs targeting Asian and African communities, and CFMT "Omni.1" focusing on targeting the European and Caribbean communities. The Omni brand expanded outside of Toronto for the first time in 2005, with Rogers' acquisition of religious independent stations in Vancouver and Winnipeg.
In 2007, Rogers secured new multicultural licenses in Calgary and Edmonton, announced its sale of the Vancouver and Winnipeg stations to S-VOX, and then acquired Vancouver's existing multicultural station CHNM. In 2012, Omni added an affiliate in Montreal via the new multicultural station CFHD-DT, with Rogers agreeing to help support the station in exchange for relieving CJNT of its own multicultural remit.
Since September 2017, Omni began to be distributed throughout the remainder of the country, as a group of specialty channels with mandatory carriage. This group is licensed under the blanket name Omni Regional; Rogers argued that revenue from mandatory carriage was necessary to restore and sustain the stations' local programming. Originally licensed by the CRTC on a three-year interim basis while the commission considered alternative proposals for a national multicultural channel, the Commission ultimately chose to re-licence Omni Regional until at least 2023, on the basis of commitments to expanded Canadian programming production.
Etymology
Derived from the Latin word "omnis" meaning "all", "Omni" is not an acronym, although the name is written all in capital letters.
History
Toronto's CFMT launched in 1979 as Canada's first multilingual/multicultural television station, owned by Multilingual Television (Toronto) Ltd. The station was originally referred to as "MTV" before using its call letters to identify on-air in 1983 due to confusion with the American music video channel. As its initial format was 100% ethnic, the station experienced financial difficulties, and was on the verge of bankruptcy when Rogers stepped in and purchased it in 1986. Rogers then attempted to launch a similar multicultural station in Vancouver in 1996, 1999 and 2002, but all three attempts were rejected by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). It was, however, given a second multicultural licence in Toronto to provide room for additional multicultural programing, and launched CJMT as a sister station to CFMT in fall 2002. It was at this point that the "OMNI Television" brand was introduced, with CFMT and CJMT branded as "OMNI.1" and "OMNI.2" respectively.
The Omni brand was expanded in 2005, when Rogers acquired two religious TV stations, CHNU in the Vancouver market and CIIT in Winnipeg, from Trinity Television. CHNU was rebranded from "NOWTV" to "OMNI.10" in September 2005, while CIIT went on air as "OMNI.11" on February 6, 2006.
2007 realignment
Several proposed changes to the Omni system were announced, either by Rogers or by the CRTC, during a one-month span from June to July 2007. First, on June 8, the CRTC granted Rogers licences to operate new multicultural stations in Calgary and Edmonton, beating out a competing proposal from Multivan Broadcast Corporation (which won the bid for the Vancouver multicultural licence in 2002 against Rogers and launched CHNM-TV).
On June 28, 2007, Rogers made public its offer to sell the religious-licensed Omni stations in Winnipeg and Vancouver as part of its contemporaneous purchase of Citytv (which the CRTC ordered CTVglobemedia to sell them off as part of the CHUM Limited takeover deal). Rogers indicated, however, that it viewed retaining the multilingual licences in Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton (effectively creating twinsticks in those three markets) as compatible with CRTC policy, since they are licensed to serve a different programming niche than the general interest Citytv stations.