History
The channel was launched on June 30, 1973 as Access by the Alberta government through the Alberta Educational Communications Corporation (AECC) alongside CKUA Radio. Prior to this point, English-language educational programs aired on Radio-Canada's television station CBXFT in Edmonton. At its launch, Access was only available through cable, and did not broadcast over-the-air.
On January 9, 1984, AECC was granted a licence from the CRTC for a television station in Calgary (CIAN) and on December 1, 1986, AECC was granted another licence for a television station in Edmonton (CJAL) to rebroadcast the programs from CIAN. Both stations rebroadcast the Access feed.
After re-evaluating all provincial funding recipients, the Government of Alberta announced in 1993 that it would cease to directly fund Access past 1994. As a result, in 1995, Access was privatized and sold to Learning and Skills Television of Alberta Limited (LSTA), which is 60% owned by CHUM Limited. In February 2005, CHUM Limited acquired the remaining 40% interest in LSTA (and renamed it Access Media Group), giving the company 100% of its shares, including its ownership in Access.
On July 12, 2006, CTVglobemedia (CTVgm) announced that it would make a friendly takeover bid to buy CHUM Limited. Due to CTVgm's plans to keep CTV and Citytv, Rogers Communications was expected to purchase Access (along with CHUM's A-Channel stations, CKX-TV in Brandon, Canadian Learning Television and SexTV: The Channel) as announced on April 9, 2007, pending CRTC approval (and approval of CTVgm's purchase).
With the CRTC electing to force CTV to sell the Citytv stations instead, the Rogers deal was rendered void. As such, CTVgm retained Access along with the A-Channel stations, CKX-TV and all of CHUM's specialty channels, and sold the Citytv stations to Rogers. The takeover transaction was finalized on June 22, 2007. The A-Channel stations were rebranded as "A" on August 11, 2008; on the same date, Access debuted a new A-styled logo and began airing programming from "A" during certain primetime hours.
On June 8, 2011, it was revealed that Access would be re-launched as CTV Two Alberta on August 29, 2011, as part of a rebranding of the "A" system.
Read more about this topic: CTV Two Alberta
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