Editing CICT-DT (section)

==History==
CICT-TV first signed on the air on October 8, 1954, as CHCT-TV, and was the first television station in the province of Alberta (as a result, it is also the oldest television station in the country that is part of the Global Television Network). The station was originally an affiliate of [[CBC Television]]. Its studios, offices and transmitter facility were located on a hill {{convert|7|mi|km|spell=in}} west of the city. The station was owned by Calgary Television Ltd., a consortium of Calgary radio stations [[CKMX|CFCN]], [[CFAC]] and [[CJAQ-FM|CKXL]]. The "CT" in CHCT stood for "Calgary Television".

During the construction of the transmitter, the {{convert|70|ft|m|0|adj=on}}, 5-ton antenna was being hoisted on the top of the {{convert|600|ft|m|adj=on}} tower when the cable snapped and the antenna fell all the way down the tower to imbed itself {{convert|15|ft|m}} in the ground. No one was injured in the accident, and the antenna was able to be repaired, but the station's launch was delayed by 10 days. A year later, CHCT moved its studios and offices from the transmitter site on Old Banff Coach Road, to a renovated badminton club/sea cadet drill hall on 955 Rideau Road S.W. in Calgary.

[[Image:CICT-TV-Logo-Montage.jpg|thumb|left|CICT-TV's logo montage of its different logos over the years, from the station's former website.]]
Notable programs that were produced at the original studio include ''Klara's Korner'', a cooking show that was in national [[television syndication|syndication]] for many years; ''Yan Can'', a cooking show hosted by [[Martin Yan]] which later aired for many years on [[PBS]] in the United States as ''[[Yan Can Cook]]''; ''[[Stampede Wrestling]]'', which was produced for over 20 years, finding loyal audiences worldwide; and ''It Figures'', which originated at the station and was produced for nearly 20 years.

In 1957, CKXL Ltd. sold its share in Calgary Television Ltd. to Fredrick Shaw, who had recently sold his share in CKXL-AM to Tel-Ray Ltd. The Love family, owners of CFCN, sold off its stake in 1961 when it opened its own station, [[CFCN-TV]]. In 1968, Tel-Ray sold its stake to [[Selkirk Communications]], part-owner of CFAC radio alongside [[Southam Inc.]] This gave Selkirk full ownership of the station, and accordingly the callsign changed to CFAC-TV.

On September 1, 1975, after the CBC launched its own station in Calgary, [[CBRT-DT|CBRT]] (channel 9; prior to its sign-on, Calgary was the largest TV market in Canada without a CBC [[owned-and-operated station]] of its own), CFAC-TV disaffiliated from CBC and became an [[independent station]]. In 1979, the station branded itself as "2&7", the latter channel number referring to both its cable location and to sister station CFAC-TV7 in [[Lethbridge]] (now [[CISA-DT|CISA]]). For a number of years afterwards, it continued to use the old CFAC "star" logo (modelled after the logo used by then-sister station [[CHCH]] in [[Hamilton, Ontario]]) alongside the 2&7 logo.

In 1981, the station moved to its current home, the Calgary Television Centre, a move reflecting its growth since its disaffiliation from the CBC. Soon after obtaining the television rights to the (then-newly relocated) [[Calgary Flames]] [[NHL]] franchise the year before, the station purchased a seven-camera mobile unit. The station has been the Flames' television partner since 1980. In the fall of 1982, the station became the first station in Calgary to begin broadcasting a 24-hour schedule. Programs seen during the overnight hours consisted of movies and reruns of ''[[The Jackie Gleason Show]]'', among other shows.

Although it continued to nominally be an independent station, in 1988, CFAC-TV began airing some programs from the [[Global Television Network]]. In 1989, [[Maclean-Hunter]] purchased Selkirk Communications, but due to [[Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission]] (CRTC) ownership regulations at the time (Maclean-Hunter already owned CFCN-TV), CFAC-TV was sold to [[Western International Communications]] (WIC). A year after WIC bought channel 2, it changed the call letters to CKKX-TV. In 1992, CKKX's news operations were expanded with the acquisitions of a satellite uplink truck and a fleet of electronic news gathering microwave trucks.

[[Image:Calgary 7.svg|thumb|150px|right|Logo used while ''Calgary 7'', used from 1993 to 2000. For logos used while as Global, refer to the [[Global Television Network]] article.]]
On September 7, 1993, CKKX changed its callsign to CICT-TV (for "Independent Calgary Television"), and also took on the brand of "Calgary 7", referring to the station's cable channel. Throughout the 1990s, prime time programming became a mix of Global-sourced shows and those either produced or acquired by WIC itself, including the nationally oriented newscast ''[[Canada Tonight]]''. WIC's properties were split between [[Shaw Communications]] and [[Canwest]] in 1998. This move required CRTC approval, the plans for which were filed in 1999 and approved in 2000. Canwest acquired WIC's television assets, including CICT; incidentally, Shaw later bought Canwest's assets amidst the latter company seeking creditor protection in 2009, with the properties becoming the present-day [[Shaw Media]] (which is based in the same city).

On September 4, 2000, CICT joined the Global Television Network full-time as an owned-and-operated station, along with fellow Alberta stations [[CITV-TV]] in [[Edmonton]] and CISA in Lethbridge. By 2001, CICT-TV began relays in [[Drumheller]] (CICT-TV-1) and [[Banff, Alberta|Banff]] (CICT-TV-2).