Canada
Through the 1980s, there were also Canadian "Love Network" affiliates, whose telethon presentations there benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Canada (MDC), an organization unrelated to the American MDA, but used Lewis's US telethon for fund raising. The telethon also helped launch a new station—in Winnipeg, CKND-TV's first program on August 31, 1975 was the MDA telethon.
The final Canadian-based local broadcasts of the telethon aired from Ottawa in 2001. After this, MDC officials canceled the local broadcasts claiming cost savings. The Ottawa broadcasts were first hosted by CFRA radio's Ken Grant, who expressed concern that there would be fewer donations due to the loss of local broadcast features. Ottawa's telethon broadcasts were conducted for 31 years, most of which originated from the Skyline Hotel (later known as the Citadel Inn).
Today, no Canadian station airs the telethon, though it is available on cable and satellite from WGN-TV, as well as from border US stations, such as WMYD in Detroit/Windsor. As of 2011, Muscular Dystrophy Canada continued to operate pledge call centers during the telethon to collect Canadian donations.
Through 2010, the corporate donation segments of the telethon occasionally mentioned their Canadian donors, and WGN's telethon included a number for Canadians to call to make a pledge, 1-800-567-CURE, which connects to the pledge center in Toronto. In 2010, WGN's telecast also included a texting address for Canadian viewers to text in their pledges to MDC for an automatic $10 donation, aside from texting charges; this coincided with the MDA's launch of their own text-to-pledge service. Most border stations would also show either the local pledge number for the Canadian portion of their viewing area (as WMYD did), or the national Canadian number.
When the MDA reformatted the telethon in 2011, it no longer allowed its border Love Network affiliates to display any pledge numbers for Canadian viewers. However, the MDC still had a pledge line open, but only on Labour Day itself, with the MDC relying on other ways to get the message out.
A French-language telethon for MDA Canada was televised in Quebec concurrently with the American show in the late-1980s on the Radio-Québec network (now Télé-Québec); first televised in 1987, this telethon was hosted by entertainer Michel Louvain.
Read more about this topic: MDA Labor Day Telethon
Famous quotes containing the word canada:
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This universal exhibition in Canada of the tools and sinews of war reminded me of the keeper of a menagerie showing his animals’ claws. It was the English leopard showing his claws.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Though the words Canada East on the map stretch over many rivers and lakes and unexplored wildernesses, the actual Canada, which might be the colored portion of the map, is but a little clearing on the banks of the river, which one of those syllables would more than cover.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)