History

Channel 32 began its history back in 1983 when a group of businessmen formed a Video Society. Ron Pitcher offered the back-room of Pitcher Real Estate and Insurance Co. and Videotron donated some equipment. Programming at that time was Music and the Spoken Word and General Conference, live Cougar basketball from the High School, a live news broadcast read by Ron Pitcher and Mel Cottle every Tuesday evening and a bulletin board ran in the background as a public service continuously with audio from CHEC radio station Lethbridge.

Within 2 yrs. Videotron contracted with the Video Society to do service work in Cardston and Raymond the Video Society hired Logan McCarthy part-time and he did service work for the cable company for the next 7-8 years as well as managing Channel 10.

In 1993 when the large cable company announced that they were going to cut funding and support for all small community channels including Cardston Channel 10, they didnít plan on receiving any complaints. But, then our small community joined together to give their support. There was such a surge of response from the community that Videotron realized that this was no ordinary small town, Cardston was willing to fight to keep their unique television station.

The Video Society decided to disband because of the cut funding however at this time a representative form the town approached Logan McCarthy and his son Corey to see what could be done to keep Channel 10 on the air the younger McCarthy had been involved along with his Dad in the Video Society and the community channel since he was 13 yrs old. Back now from his mission and with his computer expertise and technical ability made the channel more technically advanced and capable of running with fewer hands.

With some financial support from the Town and a different facility on the Waterton Highway #524 Channel 10 continued broadcasting on cable. After moving locations channel 10 asked the community for help in purchasing a new satellite system and donations started pouring in and within a short time were able to add a satellite dish to their operations.

A year later in 1994 the need to relocated once again cropped up Channel 10 was then moved SW of town to Logan McCarthyís acreage south of the Agridome, at that time he applied for a license to broadcast the community TV on a UHF channel. During the time waiting to get the license approved the channel was pre-recorded at his location and the tapes were played from the cable companyís head-end in town (a shack) east of Junior High. Two years later in 1996 the CRTC granted the license for CFSO Channel 32, equipment was then installed and the community channel continued broadcasting.

In the year 2002 Shaw Cable bought the Cardston cable system and shortly after converted to digital and once again Channel 10 was in jeopardy of being off of cable. When it was announced, the community showed their support with numerous calls made to Shaw Cable by supportive citizens. The vice president of the western region and a local engineer met with Mr.
McCarthy to see what made Channel 10 so popular with the people, they were amazed at what Channel 10 was about and what one man with a community behind could accomplish. They reprogrammed their system to include the community channel 32 on their cable system rebroadcasting locally on Channel 4.

In 2004 Channel 32 is proud to be a part of this community and to be associated with people such as the citizens of Cardston.