Friday, Sept. 27, 2019 marked the end of an era for Lethbridge’s first television station.

Global Lethbridge is on the move this week, relocating news operations from its original home on 28 Street North, where it has broadcast a television signal since the 1950s.

“[At that time] Lethbridge was growing in leaps and bounds. It doubled its population in around two decades and new technology and consumerism were part of the game,” said Belinda Crowson, president of the Lethbridge Historical Society.

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The station went live with its first broadcast on Nov. 20, 1955. It launched as CJLH TV, a partnership at that time between CJOC radio and the Lethbridge Herald.

“We were in the county in those days,” said former station manager Bob Johnson.

“We had to actually go down the road and rescue people from a mud hole on 28 Street North to bring them up and put them in front of a camera.”

Former staff recall weather challenges too.  Retired broadcast engineer Ron Joevenazzo remembers working during the famous snow storm of 1967.

“We lived out here,” Joevenazzo said.

“We had a snowmobile going back and forth bringing people in (and) bringing food in.”

Over the decades, the station would take on different call signs.

In the 1970s it went from CJLH to CJOC, changing to CFAC in the late 1970s. It would adopt its current call letters CISA in the late 1980s, and joined the Global Television network in 2000.

Through all the changes, a commitment to original, local content remained the constant.

“We prided ourselves with doing a lot of local programming. We probably did more local programming than any other station this size in Canada,” Johnson said.

“Some of it was good, some of it not all that good, but it involved the community all the time.”

“Half of the people in Lethbridge were probably out at the station at one time or another, or involved in a station activity,” said Kendall Gibson, a former programming manager and sales manager.

In 2019, station operations are on a smaller scale, but a commitment to local news perseveres.

“I think it’s vitally important for the community. It has to have a voice, an outlet and spread the good news and the bad news,” Johnson said.

Global Lethbridge will launch operations at its new downtown location on Monday.

A grand opening celebration for the newsroom is planned with staff, management and local dignitaries.

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