Talk:CIVT-TV

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Wikipedia convention is that TV station articles go at their call sign, regardless of whether there's a more common brand name for the station. Bearcat 04:10, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There are cases where "convention" can contradict reality, and this is one of them. Nobody, I repeat, nobody, other than TV nuts, uses the name CIVT to refer to this station. Yet here we are calling it exclusively CIVT to the point where a made-up logo was passed off as the official one. I would have moved CHAN too except that BCTV was already used as a redirect. Using callsigns might work for stations in the USA, but in Canada, where stations do not have to identify by callsign at all, it is a stretch to mandate their usage on Wikipedia. Kirjtc2 04:28, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's a stretch; there has to be some consistency in naming. We can't have some of the articles in Category:Canadian television stations listed by call letters and some listed by on-air brand names, because that just makes Wikipedia look poorly organized. And unless you're planning to change the title of every single broadcast station in Canada that uses a brand name rather than its official call letters, there's no reason for BC CTV to be the isolated exception. Bearcat 04:55, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

First of all, I don't imagine Bearcat's proposing (or anybody would propose) that BC CTV not exist as a title. I'm sure the question is just whether BC CTV should redirect to CIVT, or vice-versa. The question is just about the canonical name of the station. My thoughts:

• I haven't seen any actual policy myself, but all the usage I've seen, in Canada, suggests Bearcat is right on precedent.
• Basing titling in some cases on commercial branding would lead to unintended consequences. BC CTV is a charmed example since it's named quite uniquely. Imagine the mess of moving Global station articles: CIII to Global (Ontario) [not even "Global Ontario": it's hardly ever called that], CKND (which was known as CKND for 23 years) to Global (Manitoba) - or Global Manitoba? - etc. And except for the mandatory identification, most American stations use commercial branding over call signs too: so hello WCBS-TV to CBS 2 (New York), WBBM-TV to CBS 2 (Chicago), KGAN-TV to CBS 2 (Cedar Rapids) - but KCBS-TV for CBS channel 2 in Los Angeles, since that's what they're using now; see Google results.
• The station is known as CIVT to the CRTC: in proceedings, on it's license and license renewals, in ownership reports, etc., to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, etc. But it's not just "TV nuts." It's CIVT in the Canada Gazette, as canonical a publication as you can get in this country. If you were going to the library to look up the station, you'd go to a broadcast reference that would list it primarily as CIVT; BC CTV would be a secondary cross-reference (like a redirect) if it would be listed at all. Even Canadian Advertising Rates and Data, the reference of record to all media, print, broadcast, Internet, outdoor, flyer packets, etc. - even though it's written entirely by and for marketing people, and fairly lazily edited (it still listed the Pelmorex Radio Network when I checked last year!) uses call letters.
• Finally, and specific this station: BC CTV as a brand emerged in late 2001. This is about a station that was licensed in the mid-90s and went to air in 97 under another brand. But this article is about a station that, over its whole life, has been consistently known as CIVT. On the same basis, I wouldn't want CKVU to move to Citytv Vancouver - though a redirect from Citytv Vancouver, as Bearcat himself created in February of last year (to Citytv, later moved by User:Rdash to go to CKVU), is great.

BC CTV should exist, and redirect to CIVT. Vancouver Television could also redirect there, and VTV, which will eventually be a disambiguation page, could point to it too. Samaritan 06:19, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've made these changes, as of now. Samaritan 09:32, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The arguments made here are prefectly valid, but CTV British Columbia (and I'd go so far as to say the Global stations as well) are an exception to this rule. Unlike the USA, stations in Canada brand themselves in a totally different manner, and many use on-air IDs to the point where the average Canadian could not tell you what their call letters are. In fact, when someone comes to Wikipedia for info on this station, I can assure you that they'll be searching for BC CTV or CTV British Columbia, NOT CIVT. I'm not going to get into an edit war, but this is something people should consider before blindly making CIVT the main article. And to make a final point, would one expect to put **every** television station documented on Wikipedia under their call letters? Are we going to suddenly start pointing BBC affiliates to their G*** call letters? What about Australian stations? I doubt that even TVGeeks in those countries can tell you a BBC affiliate call letter without first thinking about it. Snickerdo 16:53, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The point is that BBC affiliates are consistently named under the same format as each other, American TV stations are consistently named under the same format as each other, Australian TV stations are consistently named under the same format as each other, and therefore Canadian TV stations have to be consistently named under the same format as each other. And besides, it's hardly as though someone who searched on BC CTV would come up blank; this whole thing is about which name should be the actual article versus which one should be a redirect to the other article. Both titles will get you to the same article anyway, so it all boils down to whether consistency of naming within Category:Canadian television stations matters or not. To me, it does. YMMV. Bearcat 22:23, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Then why are ATV and MCTV listed there? If consistancy is so important, why haven't we created individual articles for them? Snickerdo 00:40, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

MCTV does have individual articles (see CICI, CITO, CKNY, CHBX). I did them myself. As for ATV, I don't know enough about the stations to write up detailed pages, but I'll stub them now. The only reason there aren't already separate pages is because nobody's written separate pages yet. Bearcat 01:22, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

And anyway, considering the number of times I've seen people try to create articles on "Fox 25" or "CBS 2" or some similar nickname for an American broadcast station, I can assure you that many Americans couldn't name the call letters of most of their broadcast stations, either. You're overstating the difference between Canada and the US in this regard - legal identification or no, there's not nearly as much difference as you'd think. Legal ID doesn't actually mean that the station has to call itself WPIX in every context; it just means that the station has to broadcast its call letters a set number of times per day. Most stations actually use a big "Fox25"/"CBS2"-type brand name logo and voice-over, with the call letters appearing as rarely as they can get away with, and usually in fine print to boot. This is about as close to identical to the Canadian situation as it's possible to get under an officially different regulation system, needless to say. Bearcat 02:47, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The "BC CTV" logo was used for a brief time in 2001-2002. Currently, CIVT uses a dark-greyed CTV logo during it's newscasts. Also, The "BC CTV" logo, for a small period time was display on the building's exterior, and now there is the regular CTV logo there. Shouldn't this wiki page reflect "current logo"? On another note, the logo that is used on CHAN's wiki page is not what's used on air. Xm2631 03:36, 26 August 2005 (UTC) is not the logo that station uses