About WCGtv

WCGtv

Overview

WCGtv is the community television service of Westman Communications Group (WCG), the member-owned telecommunications co-operative based in Brandon, Manitoba. It is the local programming arm of a co-operative that provides cable television, high-speed internet and home phone service across southwestern Manitoba, and it exists to put the region's own sports, council meetings, fairs, church services and community events on television. WCG describes WCGtv as a non-profit media group that champions local stories, and the service is built around volunteers: residents of the communities Westman serves are recruited, trained and scheduled to help produce the programming, alongside a small professional staff in Brandon.

The service is not a single channel. According to Westman's own site, local content airs on channel 12 in Brandon, on a South regional channel 13 and a North regional channel 14, with channels 15 and 16 carrying public service announcements, program information and schedules. Beyond the cable system, WCGtv streams live and offers programming on demand through its own website, wcgtv.ca, so its local coverage can be watched well outside the cable footprint. In a region of small cities and farm towns spread across the southwestern corner of the province, WCGtv is for many communities the only locally produced television they receive.

History

WCGtv's history is inseparable from that of its parent co-operative. Westman Communications Group — the operating name of Westman Media Co-operative — was established in 1977 to bring cable television to Brandon, and expanded to Carberry the following year. Over the decades the co-operative grew community by community across southwestern Manitoba, and community programming grew with it: as a cable licensee, Westman was required to support a community channel, and the CRTC recognized the particular importance of that programming in this region. In Decision CRTC 99-85 in April 1999, the Commission allowed Westman to direct the full five per cent of gross broadcasting distribution revenues that licensees would ordinarily contribute to Canadian production funds into its community channel instead, citing among other things the not-for-profit nature of the undertaking and the fact that Westman's Brandon operation funded the only local television programming in several communities.

The community service was originally centred on Brandon, but in 2016 and 2017 Westman reorganized it on a regional model. WCGtv South, a regional channel serving communities including Boissevain, Killarney, Souris and Virden, launched on June 15, 2016. WCGtv North followed on December 1, 2016, for Dauphin, Minitonas, Ste. Rose and Swan River, and WCGtv Central launched on February 1, 2017, covering Carberry, Minnedosa, Neepawa and Rivers. The regional structure matched the way the co-operative itself had grown and allowed volunteer crews in each area to produce programming about their own towns rather than everything flowing through Brandon.

Sports coverage has been part of WCGtv's identity for decades. Brandon University reported in 2025 that WCGtv had been providing coverage of its Bobcats teams for close to forty years, a partnership that in the early years also gave Assiniboine College media production students practical experience working alongside the channel's crews.

Programming and Content

Local sport is the flagship of the WCGtv schedule. The channel's best-documented specialty is Brandon University Bobcats athletics, including Canada West university volleyball and basketball, produced with multi-camera mobile units, pre-game shows and experienced local broadcasters. In March 2025 the scale of that operation was on national display when Brandon hosted the U SPORTS Men's Volleyball Championship: according to Brandon University Athletics, a WCGtv crew of twenty-four staff and volunteers — the overwhelming majority of them volunteers — produced eleven matches over the March 21–23 tournament weekend, using thirteen cameras, after more than two hundred hours of pre-production work. Play-by-play announcer Tyler Crayston and technical director Brad Smith were among the crew credited for the coverage.

Around the sports core, the schedule is deliberately civic and practical. WCGtv carries Brandon City Council meetings, seasonal fairs and community events, bingo, church services and public service announcements, and it publishes weekly schedules for each of its regional channels. Local organizations can submit public service announcements of twenty-five words or fewer for free broadcast, a small detail that captures the service's purpose: it functions as a community noticeboard as much as a broadcaster. The information channels 15 and 16 carry daily programming information and updates, while studio productions, mobile productions and single-camera coverage of public events round out the output.

The honours the service has collected reflect that community role. Following the 2024–25 season, WCGtv and Westman Communications Group received volunteer of the year honours at Volleyball Manitoba's 2025 Annual Awards and Hall of Fame Ceremony in Winnipeg on June 8, 2025, and Brandon University Athletics named the broadcast team its Bobcat Booster of the Year in April 2025 — recognition, in both cases, for the volunteer effort behind the coverage rather than for any single program.

Audience and Reach

WCGtv's audience is the population of Westman's cable service area in southwestern Manitoba: Brandon, Manitoba's second-largest city, and dozens of surrounding towns and villages. Westman's services extend across a long list of communities that includes Dauphin, Carberry, Minnedosa, Neepawa, Shilo, Rivers, Souris, Boissevain, Killarney, Virden, Ste. Rose, Swan River, Minitonas and Erickson, with television service in many smaller places besides. The co-operative's programming is organized to mirror that geography, with the Brandon channel joined by the South and North regional channels so that viewers in each part of the region see coverage of their own communities.

Because subscribing to Westman means joining the co-operative, the audience and the ownership substantially overlap: viewers are, in a literal sense, watching a service they collectively own. The launch of live streaming and on-demand viewing through wcgtv.ca has widened the reach further, making local games, council meetings and events available to former residents, students away at school and family members outside the region.

Digital Presence

WCGtv's digital home is its section of the Westman Communications Group website at westmancom.com, together with its dedicated viewing site, wcgtv.ca, which offers live streaming and on-demand access to local programming. The web presence reflects the channel's working model: weekly schedules are published online for the Brandon, South and North channels, community groups can submit public service announcements through an online form, and prospective volunteers are recruited through the site with the promise of training in camera operation, editing and lighting. Westman has also advertised WCGtv positions — including a promotions and volunteer coordinator and casual mobile production assistants for community programming — through Assiniboine College's job board in Brandon, evidence of how the service recruits both its volunteers and its production staff locally. Social media accounts maintained by the WCGtv team promote new and live programs across the local and regional channels.

Ownership and Organisation

WCGtv is operated by Westman Communications Group, the operating name of Westman Media Co-operative, from its head office in Brandon. The co-operative structure is central to how the channel works: Westman is a consumer co-operative owned and controlled by its members, membership is open to anyone who purchases its services, and an elected board of directors sets policy and oversees management. Members build equity in the co-operative that can be cashed in if they move out of the service area, and Westman is a member of the Manitoba Cooperative Association. Alongside television, internet and phone, the group's media holdings include Brandon radio stations 880 CKLQ ("Q-Country") and 94.7 CKLF ("94.7 Star FM"), acquired with the purchase of Riding Mountain Broadcasting Ltd. in 2003.

Within the group, community programming is a department in its own right, and the CRTC's 2003 consideration of Westman's video-on-demand licence recorded the company's evidence that money directed to the community channel was very significant to its Community Programming Department. Day to day, WCGtv runs on a hybrid model: a small staff — coordinators, mobile production assistants and technical staff based at the Brandon office at 1906 Park Avenue — supporting a much larger body of trained volunteers drawn from the communities the channels serve. High school students in grades nine to twelve can earn up to a full graduation credit by volunteering, which keeps a pipeline of young production talent flowing into the service.

Contact and Availability

WCGtv is available to Westman television subscribers in Brandon on channel 12, on the South regional channel 13 and the North regional channel 14, with program information and public service announcements on channels 15 and 16, and programming can also be watched live and on demand at wcgtv.ca. The WCGtv office is located at Westman's Brandon premises at 1906 Park Avenue, Brandon, Manitoba, R7B 0R9, and is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday to Friday, subject to production schedules. The office can be reached by phone at 204-717-2611; public service announcements can be sent to psa@westmancom.com, and general enquiries to wcgtv@westmancom.com. Community members interested in appearing on air, covering an event or training as a volunteer can contact the office or apply through the Westman website.