The Barbo Manor () is an 18th-century manor-house located in the settlement of Vesela Gora, part of the Municipality of Šentrupert in Inner Carniola, Slovenia.

History

The structure was not originally a manor, but a combination of a parochial house for the parish priest and an overnight hostel on the Vesela Gora pilgrimage route. It was built in 1768, on the site of an earlier, smaller parochial house. After Vesela Gora ceased to be a pilgrimage destination in 1782, the building lost its purpose. In 1825 it was acquired by the noble family of Barbo, who converted it into a residence and thereby gave it its current name. It remained in their possession until 1938, when it was bought by Winzor Edeltrant. In 1942 the manor was partially burned, and its interior furnishings partially looted. After the Second World War the building was nationalized and partially restored. In 1974, its ground floor was turned into an ethnological museum. In 1984, the local Šentrupert–Mirna  apiculture society set up a pair of memorial rooms in the first floor dedicated to two local historical figures, the apiarist and doctor Aleksander Lunaček and the priest and art patron Peter Pavel Glavar.

Architecture

The manor has a partial basement and is entirely built of stone, except for the roof. Its floor plan is 34 meters by 12 meters). The longer side of the building is partially dug into the slope; a staircase protruding from the northwestern side connects the basement, ground floor, first floor, and attic. The building was given its present appearance in 1768; the year is carved over the main entrance. The exterior stonework is unstuccoed. All four sides have evenly spaced windows in stone frames. The basement features a large, vaulted wine cellar. Across a courtyard from the manor there is an outbuilding with a vaulted stable.

References

Manors in Slovenia
Houses completed in 1768
Municipality of Šentrupert
Barbo family
1768 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire

Barbo Manor


Jack Pepper (born Edward Jackson Culpepper; June 14, 1902 – April 1, 1979) was an American vaudeville dancer, singer, comedian, musician, and later in life a nightclub manager.

Pepper began entertaining on the vaudeville circuit in his youth with his sisters Helen and Winnie Mae. He first came to national prominence in the 1920s as part of the duo Salt and Pepper with Frank Salt. Pepper sang and played ukulele in a style similar to that of Cliff Edwards in addition to doing comic and dance bits. Salt and Pepper appeared prominently in Broadway revues, made radio broadcasts, and recorded a number of sides for Cameo Records in the mid-1920s.

After striking out on his own Pepper teamed up with dancer Ginger Rogers as Ginger and Pepper. Rogers and Pepper were married from 1929 to 1931. Although the marriage was short, they continued to speak respectfully of each other all their lives.

The year 1929 marked Pepper's film debut in the short subject After the Show.

By his second wife, Dawn, Pepper was the father of actress Cynthia Pepper, star of the 1961 TV comedy series Margie.

In 1940, he appeared in the Bing Crosby film Rhythm on the River and Road to Singapore, the first Bob Hope–Bing Crosby "Road" picture. Drafted during World War II, he toured with the USO.

Pepper continued as a film and television character actor into the 1960s. He made three guest appearances during the 1964–65 final season of The Jack Benny Program. He was seen with Academy Award winner Lee Marvin in the 1965 hit comedy Cat Ballou. Throughout his long career, Jack Pepper appeared in 10 Bob Hope features, including the 1969 comedy How to Commit Marriage, his final (uncredited) role.

He was buried at the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Partial filmography

Road to Singapore (1940) - Newspaper Columnist (uncredited)
Rhythm on the River (1940) - Bob's cabbie (uncredited)
Silver Canyon (1951) - Bit Role (uncredited)
My Favorite Spy (1951) - FBI Man (uncredited)
Son of Paleface (1952) - Restaurant Patron (uncredited)
Just for You (1952) - Stagehand (uncredited)
Stop, You're Killing Me (1952) - The Singer
Off Limits (1952) - Bartender (uncredited)
Trouble Along the Way (1953) - Irish Tenor / Pianist in Saloon (uncredited)
A Star Is Born (1954) - Chef (uncredited)
The Seven Little Foys (1955) - Theater Manager (uncredited)
Lucy Gallant (1955) - Minor Role (uncredited)
Anything Goes (1956) - Man (uncredited)
That Certain Feeling (1956) - Extra (uncredited)
Beau James (1957) - Politician (uncredited)
Man on Fire (1957) - Club Member (uncredited)
I Married a Woman (1958) - Crawford (uncredited)
Once Upon a Horse... (1958) - Roulette Croupier (uncredited)
The Five Pennies (1959) - Ship Worker (uncredited)
Bachelor in Paradise (1961) - Floor Man (uncredited)
Papa's Delicate Condition (1963) - Joe (uncredited)
Critic's Choice (1963) - 1st Baseman (uncredited)
The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) - Sport Fishermen (uncredited)
Cat Ballou (1965) - Banjo Player

References
 Vaudeville, Old & New, by Frank Cullen, Florence Hackman, Donald McNeilly. Routledge, 2007.

External links

American male dancers
American ukulele players
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Nightclub managers
Vaudeville performers
1902 births
1979 deaths
20th-century American dancers
20th-century American singers
20th-century American male singers

Jack Pepper


A partnership is when two or more people work together to complete a task. Those people are partners. Partner may share a business together for the profit of each other. If one business partner ends up making money they both share the profit. Some partners are not individuals but corporations or other groups.

Partnerships may be temporary, e.g. dancing partners (two people who dance together) or partners at a card games such as bridge in which partners work together against the other partners (their opponents).

A partner may also be somebody who lives with another person, e.g. a husband or wife (marriage partners), or a very good friend who shares his or her life with the other person. The word partner in this sense is used a lot in modern times because it does not discriminate between married or unmarried couples.

Business organizations
Relationships

Partnership


Ismail Sidky Pasha () (15 June 1875 – 9 July 1950) was an Egyptian politician who served as Prime Minister of Egypt from 1930 to 1933 and again in 1946.

Life and career
He was born in Alexandria and was originally named Isma'il Saddiq but his name was changed after his namesake fell out of favor.

Sidky graduated from Collège des Frères in Cairo and the Khedival Law School, then joined the public prosecutor's office. In 1899 he became administrative secretary of the Alexandria municipal commission, serving until 1914, when he was appointed minister of agriculture and later minister of waqfs (Islamic endowments).

In 1915, Sidky joined the nationalist Wafd Party and was eventually deported to Malta with party founder Saad Zaghloul and other loyalists in 1919. Following World War I Sidky left the Wafd Party. He served as Minister of Finance in 1921 and 1922 and as minister of interior in 1922 and from 1924 to 1925. He then retired from politics.

He returned to politics in the 1930s to serve as prime minister from June 1930 to September 1933, running as a candidate for the People's Party. He was known as a strong leader and fought the influence of his former Wafd Party. He joined an all-party delegation to negotiate the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936, which established Egypt as a technically sovereign state, although still under British control.

During his first tenure as Prime Minister, Sidky pressed for the enactment of mortgage lending reforms aimed at restructuring the relationship of foreign lenders such as Crédit Foncier Egyptienne, the Mortgage Company of Egypt, and The Land Bank of Egypt with qualifying Egyptian mortgage debtors. On 3 February 1933 the Legislative Assembly of the Mixed Court of Appeals approved a law decreed by King Fuad and signed by the King, Sidki, and Egyptian Minister of Justice Ahmed Ali relative to properties in process of foreclosure with the Mixed Court System, known as Law 7 of 1933. Having begun the process of mortgage loan reforms in 1933, subsequent governments followed essentially the same practices, all in the context of foreclosure pressures experienced during the global economic depression of the 1930s, e.g., decret-loi no. 72 de 1935, and Law 47 of 1936, and Law 48 of 1936, each of which may be viewed in light of the negotiations leading to the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936.

In 1938 Sidky retired from politics again. He returned to politics one last time in February 1946 as Prime Minister, seeking to revise the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty. After failing to unite Egypt and Sudan under Egyptian sovereignty, Sidky resigned from the office on 8 December 1946. He was succeeded by Mahmoud el Nokrashy Pasha.

References

External links
The Sidqi years via Al-Ahram

20th-century prime ministers of Egypt
1875 births
1950 deaths
Agriculture Ministers of Egypt
Interior Ministers of Egypt
Finance Ministers of Egypt
Politicians from Alexandria
Wafd Party politicians
Endowments Ministers of Egypt

Ismail Sidky


Aorun (pron.:"AW-roon") is an extinct genus of carnivorous theropod dinosaur first discovered in 2006, with its scientific description published in 2013. It is one of the oldest known coelurosaurian dinosaurs and is estimated to have lived ~161.6 million years ago during the Late Jurassic Period. It is the fifth theropod discovered from Wucaiwan, China.

Discovery and naming
The fossil which included the skull with numerous teeth, some vertebrae and leg bones were discovered by James Clark, the Ronald B. Weintraub Professor of Biology, in the Department of Biological Sciences of GW's Columbian College of Arts and Sciences with his then doctoral student Jonah Choiniere, along with a team of international researchers in a remote region of Xinjiang in China in 2006. They originally spotted a portion of a leg bone exposed on the surface, and when they dug it up, they found the skull underneath.

The type species Aorun zhaoi was named and described in 2013 by Choiniere, Clark, Catherine Forster, Mark Norell, David Eberth, Gregory Erickson, Chuc Hongjun and Xu Xing. The generic name is derived from Mandarin Chinese and is actually a shortened masculine name of Ao Run, who is the Chinese mythical deity, the Dragon King of the West Sea in the epic Journey to the West. The specific name honours Professor Zhao Xijin, who led several important vertebrate paleontological expeditions
to the Junggar Basin. Aorun zhaoi is the only species under the genus, which thus is monotypic.

Description
The holotype, IVPP V15709, consists of a skull, the lower jaws, a neck vertebra, a dorsal vertebra, three tail vertebrae, the left ulna and hand, the lower ends of both pubes and both lower legs. In the skull, the right orbit contains a nearly complete sclerotic ring which is composed of overlapping ossicles. The gracile hand of this specimen, which has particularly thin metacarpals III and IV more closely approximates the hands of derived non-avian coelurosaurs (Gishlick & Gauthier 2007) than the hands of more basal theropods.

It is estimated that the number of teeth in the premaxilla is four, in the maxilla twelve, and in the dentary between twenty-five and thirty. Its twelve maxillary tooth positions is also suggestive of a juvenile condition, with adult coelurosaurs typically having 15 or more. The teeth are distinctive, because they have no serrations (in the premaxillary and in some dentary teeth), or bear very fine serrations (~10/mm) only on the distal carinae (maxillary teeth and some dentary teeth). The authors noted, however, that the variability in the dentition may represent the juvenile condition.

Size and ontogenetic stage
The specimen, as can be judged from the available skeletal structure, represents a small bipedal predator. The type specimen is a juvenile individual and measures about 1 m (3.3 ft) long, weighing about 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lbs). Choiniere et al. (2013) noted that based on a histological analysis of its femur and tibia and other characteristics of the holotype, this specimen of Aorun is at most one year old, and is clearly not a perinate. The relatively large orbit of Aorun is not indicative of what would be expected of an adult morphology.

Diagnostic features
The describing authors established some diagnostic traits. In the depression for a skull opening, the fenestra antorbitalis, to the front a second opening is present, a fenestra maxillaris, that occupies much of the front part of this depression. The teeth in the maxilla only on their rear edges have denticles which are very small and directed towards the point of the teeth. The neck vertebrae are mildly opisthocoelous: with centra that are convex in front and concave at the rear. The claws of the hand are different from each other: the thumb claw is large and curved, but the other two claws are smaller and feature a straight underside. The shinbone has on its front outer side only a high narrow groove functioning as contact with the upper part of the astragalus. This processus ascendens however, though indeed positioned on the outer side, is low.

Aorun is different from other theropods discovered from the same region, such as Guanlong, Haplocheirus, Limusaurus, Monolophosaurus, Sinraptor and Zuolong. It is different from Guanlong in lacking a medial crest on the premaxilla, nasals and frontal bones. It also lacks high external nostrils, and a short anterior maxillary process. It has a shorter premaxillary body, but with a larger maxillary fenestra, a rodlike jugal, closely spaced fine serrations on the distal tooth carinae of the maxilla and dentary. The cervical vertebral centra are elongated with two pneumatic foramina, the neural spines are short and elongated towards the posterior in the dorsal vertebrae, and the pubic shaft is curved at the end. The limb bones are also substantially different.

Phylogeny
The authors placed Aorun in a basal position in within Coelurosauria and a member of Coeluridae. The assignment of Aorun to this position is due to its lack of synapomorphies that would provide evidence of its affinity with more derived coelurosaurian taxa. Tykoski (2005) and others have demonstrated that when immature taxa, as is the case with this specimen, are coded as adults in a phylogenetic analysis, the immature taxa were recovered in artificially basal positions relative to adults of the same taxon. In their cladistic analysis of Bannykus and Xiyunykus, Xu et al. (2018) recovered Aorun as a basal alvarezsaur. This assignment has been questioned.

Paleoecology

Provenance and occurrence
The remains of the type specimen of Aorun zhaoi IVPP V15709 was recovered in the Wucaiwan locality, in the lower half of the Shishugou Formation, in the Junggar Basin in Xinjiang, China. The specimen was collected by IVPP-GWU Field Expedition in 2006, in terrestrial red-brown siltstone that was shown by radiometric dating to have been deposited approximately 161.6 million years ago, at the boundary of the Oxfordian/Callovian stages of the Jurassic period. This find is significant temporally, because coelurosaur fossils dating to the Jurassic are rare. This specimen is housed in the collection of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, in Beijing, China.

Fauna and habitat
The paleoenvironment of the Shishugou Formation was warm but had a basin-wide seasonal dry climate. The Wucaiwan locality of the Shishugou Formation has produced the remains of other theropods, such as the basal ceratosaur Limusaurus inextricabilis, the basal coelurosaur Zuolong salleei, the basal tyrannosauroid Guanlong wucaii and the basal alvarezsauroid Haplocheirus sollers. These other theropods, however, were recovered in sediments that were Oxfordian in age. This rich paleofauna also included pterosaurs like Sericipterus, ornithischians like Jiangjunosaurus and Yinlong and the sauropods Bellusaurus, Klamelisaurus, Tienshanosaurus and Mamenchisaurus. Aorun was probably a predator of small lizards and mammals. Aorun is the seventh theropod, and oldest coelurosaur known from the Shishugou Formation, which is considered one of the most phylogenetically and trophically diverse middle to late Jurassic theropod faunas.

References

External links
 Live Science
 Nature World News
 Chinese News
 Phys.org
 The Guardian Express

Alvarezsaurs
Oxfordian life
Late Jurassic dinosaurs of Asia
Jurassic China
Fossils of China
Paleontology in Xinjiang
Fossil taxa described in 2013
Taxa named by Catherine Forster
Taxa named by Mark Norell
Taxa named by Gregory M. Erickson
Taxa named by Xu Xing

Aorun


WSNS-TV (channel 44) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the local outlet for the Spanish-language network Telemundo. It is owned and operated by NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group alongside NBC outlet WMAQ-TV (channel 5); it is also sister to regional sports network NBC Sports Chicago. WSNS-TV and WMAQ-TV share studios at the NBC Tower on North Columbus Drive in the city's Streeterville neighborhood; both stations are broadcast from the same transmitter atop the Willis Tower in the Chicago Loop.

WSNS-TV began broadcasting in 1970. Originally specializing in the automated display of news headlines, it evolved into Chicago's third full-fledged independent station, carrying movies, local sports, and other specialty programming. This continued until 1980, when WSNS became the Chicago-area station for ON TV, an over-the-air subscription television (STV) service owned by Oak Industries, which took a minority ownership stake in the station. While ON TV was successful in Chicago and the subscription system became the second-largest in the country by total subscribers, the rise of cable television precipitated the end of the business in 1985, with WSNS-TV as the last ON TV station standing.

On July 1, 1985, the station became Chicago's first full-time Spanish-language outlet, affiliated with the Spanish International Network (Univision after 1987) and airing local news and other programming. Indiscretions from the station's STV era led to a license challenge in which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled at one point that a challenger should be awarded the channel over Video 44, the station's ownership consortium. A groundswell of support helped the station to survive and led to an $18 million settlement that kept it in business. WSNS-TV switched to Telemundo in 1989 and was the network's largest affiliate until being purchased outright in 1996. As part of NBC's purchase of Telemundo in 2002, WSNS and WMAQ became a combined operation.

The independent years (1970–1980)

Construction and instant news

On September 27, 1962, Essaness Theatres, a chain of Chicago motion picture houses, filed under the name Essaness Television Associates for a construction permit to build a new UHF television station on channel 44 in Chicago. The station would transmit from the Woods Theatre in the Loop and air programming aimed at minority groups, particularly Chicago's Black community. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the application on May 15, 1963, the second such request it had granted that month in the Chicago area after approving channel 32.

It would be the better part of a decade before channel 44 was in service. In 1965, Essaness proposed constructing instead at the Civic Opera Building on Wacker Drive. That year, it also signed for antenna space on the John Hancock Center, being the only unbuilt television station confirmed for the new skyscraper's antenna masts. In 1967, the Harriscope Broadcasting Corporation of Chicago took a stake in the licensee, which was renamed Video 44. The transmission facility was completed in late 1969, with channel 44 sharing with WBBM-TV on the east mast.

After the death of company founder Edwin Silverman that February, WSNS began broadcasting on April 5, 1970. Its format was a radical departure from that of any television station of the time: a continuous printed roundup of news headlines, sports scores, weather, and other items alongside advertising, which general manager Yale Roe called "instant news". Roe felt that it was better to offer something different than compete with existing programming as a startup. It was seven months before the station broadcast any programming featuring live personalities: an 11 p.m. hour featuring two women as newscasters (Mary Jane Odell and Linda Marshall), commentator Warner Saunders, and Chuck Collins with the Underground News, whose sponsors were described by Clarence Petersen of the Chicago Tribune as "head shops and paperback bookstores". This program ran for three years and was also syndicated to other cities; when tapes of it resurfaced in the late 1980s, viewers at a Chicago nightclub saw interviews with such figures as Jesse Jackson, Jim Croce, and Steve Goodman, as well as an interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in which the former explained he was moving to New York—where he was killed in 1980—"for his safety".

The format failed to inspire much loyalty, and a diverse assortment of programs appeared on WSNS-TV's air. Many were talk shows and religious programs, ranging from Rex Humbard to Paul Harvey. Several programs featured psychics. At midnight, the station aired Heart of the News, which featured anchor Linda Fuoco reading news headlines while reclining on a heart-shaped bed; a mattress company was the sponsor of the program, which Broadcasting magazine called "boudoir journalism". In November 1971, the "instant news" service ceased, with the station running enough non-automated programming to broadcast evenings and all day on Sundays.

Chicago's third independent
In 1972, Ed Morris left PBS to become the general manager of WSNS-TV. He made several changes to revamp the station with a more traditional look for an independent and told Variety that he hoped channel 44 would "not only be talked about but also watched". Under his direction, WSNS-TV began airing more classic reruns and movies—having programmed just one movie a week prior to the changes—and extended its broadcast day while removing significant portions of the previous schedule. Even more significant than the new programming was the 1973 acquisition of the television rights to Chicago White Sox baseball; the team concluded an unprofitable five-year relationship with WFLD (channel 32), with Harry Caray adding television play-by-play announcing duties to his existing radio work. They joined a programming lineup that also included 15 hours of Spanish-language fare a week, second only to WCIU-TV (channel 26).

Chicago Bulls basketball began airing on channel 44 in 1973; WSNS-TV broadcast the Bulls' full 41-game road schedule on WSNS-TV, the only NBA team with every road game broadcast on television. That same year, channel 44 began airing World Hockey Association hockey with the Chicago Cougars, college basketball, and local professional wrestling. The Cougars and Bulls were called by Lorn Brown, who later joined Caray in the White Sox booth from 1976 to 1979. The station filled its other hours with City Colleges of Chicago telecourses, which moved in 1975 from educational station WTTW after 19 years, and the new Super Slam drawing from the Illinois Lottery. That same year, it endured a nine-week strike by NABET technicians that saw management run the station and striking workers picket the station in Popeye costumes.

In 1976, the Bulls moved their games to WGN-TV (channel 9) after experiencing falling ratings and the collapse of their TV rights deal. Three reasons were cited for the latter. The team performed poorly, finishing 24–58 in the 1975–76 season. Sponsors, one apparently thinking the viewership was predominantly Black and had "limited sales potential", were reportedly hesitant to advertise. Lastly, Olympic Broadcasting Service, which had packaged the rights, opted to exit the business and focus on its activities in the savings and loan industry. The Chicago Black Hawks took up residency at WSNS-TV two years later, marking their return to local television after not having a regular-season broadcast partner in two seasons. After the deal ended in 1980, the hockey club did not have another free broadcast television partner until 2008.

ON TV subscription television (1980–1985)

Pre-launch
In November 1975, Video 44 requested authority to operate an over-the-air subscription television (STV) service over WSNS-TV. As a result of a similar request from WCIU-TV, the application sat for several years, as the FCC did not change its policy to permit more than one subscription station in large markets until 1979. Channel 44's plans rapidly shifted twice on STV. In June 1979, an agreement was reached with Oak Industries, a maker of broadcast and cable equipment and other electronics then headquartered in Crystal Lake and the owner of the ON TV operation in Los Angeles, to use Oak's technology for a subscription service on WSNS-TV, though Oak would not own the station or the STV operation.

Less than two weeks after announcing its initial accord with Oak, Video 44 instead agreed to sell 50 percent of the company to American Television and Communications (ATC), the cable TV division of Time, Inc., for more than $5 million; among the issues that would need to be resolved was that ATC used equipment from Zenith Electronics instead of the Oak stack. ATC had initially applied for channel 66 in nearby Joliet as part of preparations to launch its own STV service, which ultimately was called Preview; Chicago was a prime market for STV, as the city had no cable television. The ATC transaction, however, attracted high-powered opposition that September. Five major movie studios, led by Paramount Pictures, urged the FCC to deny the transaction, noting that Time already held a monopoly in pay TV programming markets through its ownership of the HBO pay cable service and claiming that only WSNS-TV could break that monopoly in Chicago. The next month, citing the petition to deny, Video 44 and ATC dropped the proposed sale.

After finally winning FCC approval for STV the month before, in March 1980, Video 44 initially agreed to sell 49 percent of its joint venture to two groups: Capital Cities Communications, which owned major television stations in Philadelphia and Houston, and Oak. Capital Cities bowed out, leading Oak to purchase the full 49% by itself for $7.5 million. As WSNS prepared for a subscription television future, it dropped the White Sox after eight seasons following the 1980 campaign.

Operation

On September 22, 1980, WSNS began offering ON TV subscription programming beginning at 7 p.m. on weekdays and 5 p.m. on weekends, with Oak supplying first-run movies, sporting events, specials, and adult programming to subscribers who paid $21.95 a month plus a $52.95 installation fee for the necessary decoder set-top box that unscrambled the programs.

A year after ON TV began broadcasting, it got competition when Spectrum, originally owned by Buford Television, began airing over Focus Broadcasting-owned WFBN (channel 66) on September 29, 1981. At the same time, WSNS extended its transmission of ON TV programming by two hours on weekdays (now starting at 5 p.m.) and by three hours on weekends (to 12 p.m.). In January 1982, WSNS began carrying ON TV for 20 hours per day, and after the repeal of the limits on STV operating hours later that year, it moved to 23 hours a day of subscription programming—resulting in the dismissal of WSNS's own sales unit and other station staffers. In June 1982, ON TV counted 120,600 subscribers in Chicagoland, making it the second-largest STV service in the country, only surpassed by Oak's enormously successful Los Angeles operation with 379,000 subscribers. General manager Ed Morris hailed the conversion to subscription operation for increasing WSNS-TV's revenue and providing a steadier source of income than ad-supported commercial operation for a station that had been "rarely profitable" in the year before the switch.

The loss of most of WSNS's non-STV programming motivated action by a consortium of Chicago businessmen organized as Monroe Communications Corporation. Later in 1982, WSNS-TV's license came up for renewal. On November 1, 1982, Monroe filed its own application for a station on channel 44, which specified conversion to Spanish-language programming; in proposing its own station, Monroe challenged the license renewal of the existing WSNS-TV. In July 1983, the FCC designated the Monroe proposal and WSNS-TV's license renewal for comparative hearing.

SportsVision: Two-channel subscription TV

At the same time that ON TV was gaining subscribers, SportsVision International, a consortium of four Chicago sports franchises—the White Sox, Bulls, Blackhawks, and Sting—had reached a deal to set up a new subscription television station on channel 60 (the shared time WPWR/WBBS), which would carry their games. Both Oak and Buford competed for the right to manage the service, and Oak won out; ON TV subscribers could receive SportsVision for an extra $14.95 a month, and a special run of two-channel decoders was made.

SportsVision finally launched May 25, 1982, having been delayed due to issues with the new decoders and then again due to low uptake, airing as a free preview for two extra weeks.

The second STV operation, however, did not reach the subscriber base needed to maintain its viability. The overlap between subscribers of SportsVision and ON TV, which was marketed mainly to women, was low; only 10 percent of SportsVision's 21,000 residential accounts were also ON TV subscribers. By March 1983, it had 25,000 subscribers, half of the amount needed to break even, not helped by the poor performance of the White Sox in the 1982 season. In November, still at just 35,000 subscribers and losing $300,000 a month, it was announced that SportsVision would be folded into ON TV on January 1, 1984, with channel 44's STV service televising a significant number of games and SportsVision continuing as a premium cable channel in suburban areas and outside of Chicagoland; the remaining service was then sold to SportsChannel.

Later STV years

While subscription television had seen meteoric growth nationally, its fortunes began to reverse significantly in 1982, as a national recession limited disposable income and increasing cable television penetration meant significant subscriber erosion at many systems. By August 1983, ON TV in Chicago had dropped from its 1982 high of 120,600 subscribers to just 89,500. The system entered 1984 battered by piracy problems, which had also been cited by White Sox owner Eddie Einhorn as a reason for the end of SportsVision as a separate STV service. In January, the service's operations director estimated that, for every paying subscriber, another was pirating its programming.

ON TV received something of a reprieve in March 1984 when it was able to buy the business of Spectrum, which had been sold to United Cable, leaving Chicago with one STV service. However, subscriber losses, as they were in other cities, were continuing to accelerate. By August 1984, ON TV had 80,000 subscribers, of which 18,000 were previous clients of Spectrum. The service was also instituting program cutbacks. In November 1984, non-professional sports, children's programs and some other low-rated programming were axed to emphasize movies and a reduced schedule of events from SportsVision. By year's end, Oak had put its remaining STV services up for sale, and the total subscriber count in Chicago had fallen to 75,000.

In February 1985, as Oak's financial condition continued to worsen, it emerged that the company was taking writedowns related to the termination of its STV businesses; Burt Harris, owner of WSNS owner Harriscope, stated that he did not see the service making it to the end of the year. In March, with subscribers down to just 35,000, Oak officially announced it would discontinue its STV service on June 30, bringing to a close Oak's eight-year venture into subscription television.

February 1985 also brought an initial decision in the license challenge case from FCC administrative law judge Joseph Chachkin. He ruled in favor of Monroe, finding that Video 44 had rendered a minimal service with a lack of public affairs and local programming and studios all but shut down; however, the matter could be appealed before the full FCC. The license challenge prevented Oak from unloading its WSNS-TV ownership stake, even though Oak Industries intended to do so, as it had with its other television stations.

Spanish-language broadcasting (1985–present)

SIN/Univision (1985–1989)
On July 1, 1985, nearly five years of subscription television programming on WSNS-TV was replaced by a full-time Spanish-language television station, affiliated with the Spanish International Network (renamed Univision in 1987). The two existing Spanish-language stations in Chicago either also aired other programming, as in the case of WCIU-TV, or shared their channel with another station, as did WBBS-TV. In addition, prior to 1985, the city had only one Spanish-language radio station; this was the case even though, by that time, Hispanics were estimated to comprise 19 percent of the population of the city of Chicago. The new programming was an immediate financial success. Revenue for the first year was $9 million, 20 percent above projections; a hard-hit WBBS cut back to weekend programs before disappearing later that year. Whereas previously an estimated 45 percent of Chicago Hispanics had watched channels 26 and 60, 70 percent tuned in to local Spanish-language TV with WSNS's arrival.

Meanwhile, the Monroe license challenge continued after Chachkin's initial decision. The FCC review board initially remanded the decision back to him to consider an issue raised by the challengers that some of the films telecast by WSNS as a subscription station were "obscene", including adult films with titles such as Pandora's Mirror, Kinky Ladies of Bourbon Street, and The Erotic Adventures of Zorro. The commission itself intervened to take up the First Amendment question, declaring in April 1986 that Chachkin could not consider the obscenity issue and that consideration of obscenity should be deferred to local authorities.

The case, minus the obscenity matter, then returned to the review board, which overturned Chachkin's findings in 1988 and recommended renewal of the WSNS license. It contended that the administrative law judge had focused unduly on the last 26 weeks of the three-year license term, after STV programming had increased considerably. It also found that the "renewal expectancy" factor in a comparative hearing—an incumbency advantage for Video 44—outweighed Monroe's weaker edges in media diversification and participation of ownership in station management.

Switch to Telemundo and license challenge settlement
On October 13, 1988, WSNS-TV announced that it would switch its affiliation to Telemundo after that station's affiliation agreement with Univision concluded on December 31. Two months later, on December 16, WCIU—whose contract with Telemundo was set to expire the following month—signed an affiliation agreement with Univision, returning the station to that network after four years. The two stations switched affiliations on January 10, 1989. Univision stated that WSNS and Univision had been at a financial impasse regarding new affiliation terms; WSNS general manager José Lamas noted that "Telemundo made us an offer we couldn't refuse".

The license challenge continued to be heard by the FCC and federal courts. In April 1990, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., overturned the full FCC's 1989 decision to renew Video 44's license to operate WSNS-TV, stating that the agency acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in granting it—partly due to it having "improperly refused to consider" the obscenity issue—and requiring the commission to conduct further proceedings in the dispute. On September 19, 1990, the FCC denied Video 44's application to renew its license; the ruling was upheld on appeal weeks later in a 5-0 decision, and the FCC awarded a new construction permit to Monroe Communications. Video 44, Inc. subsequently appealed the decision, which Howard Shapiro, head of WCIU-TV owner Weigel Broadcasting, called "a remarkable series of circumstances that may never be duplicated again" for its relationship to changes in the composition of the FCC with the turnover of several of its members and resultant new regulatory attitudes.

Although Monroe pledged to provide an expanded array of Hispanic programming aimed at Chicagoans of Mexican and Central American heritage should its license application be approved, several Hispanic aldermen on the Chicago City Council and other community leaders objected to the FCC's decision, expressing concern that the revocation would deprive Chicago's Hispanic community of a major voice. The FCC denied Video 44's appeal of the license revocation for a second time on July 25, 1991. In the wake of this decision, the National Association of Broadcasters expelled WSNS-TV as a member, apparently thinking the revocation action took immediate effect. The license challenge finally ended after eleven years in June 1993, when Monroe Communications reached an agreement with Harriscope to drop its case against Video 44, Inc., in an $18 million settlement awarded to Monroe by Harriscope.

On November 9, 1995, Harriscope and Oak sold their combined 74.5% controlling interest in the station to Telemundo for $44.7 million, with Essaness initially retaining a 25.5% stake; the deal was approved by the FCC in February 1996. The move allowed Oak to finally exit the television industry and allowed Telemundo to buy the largest station in the network that it did not already own. Despite the sale, the 1995 arrival of a full-time Univision station in WGBO-TV (channel 66) hurt WSNS in news and total-day ratings. Within two years of starting up, WGBO had triple the audience share of WSNS among Hispanic viewers. In 1999, the station moved from the John Hancock Center to the Sears (now Willis) Tower as part of the construction of its digital facility.

NBC ownership

When NBC purchased Telemundo in 2002, WSNS became part of the newly enlarged conglomerate, creating Chicago's first commercial television duopoly between two full-power television stations. The consolidation of NBC owned-and-operated station WMAQ-TV and WSNS-TV led to pressure on NBC to extend the same union benefits to the previously non-union Telemundo staffers that the NBC employees already enjoyed. WSNS-TV's nine anchors and reporters voted unanimously to join the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA, now part of SAG-AFTRA). In June 2003, WSNS migrated from its longtime studio facility on West Grant Place and merged its operations with WMAQ-TV at the NBC Tower on North Columbus Drive in the Magnificent Mile.

On November 11, 2016, WMAQ-TV's president and general manager, David Doebler, was appointed as president and general manager of WSNS-TV. In 2021, NBC tapped Kevin Cross, the senior vice president and general manager of regional sports network NBC Sports Chicago, to also serve as president and general manager of WMAQ and WSNS-TV, replacing the retiring Doebler.

Programming

News operation

After the switch to Spanish-language broadcasting, WSNS began producing local newscasts, originally under the title  (Newscenter 44), on October 7, 1985. Originally airing in the early evening only, WSNS began producing late newscasts on October 17, 1994, in response to the cancellation of WCIU-TV's Spanish-language local news service. To respond to the challenge posed by WGBO, channel 44 hired personalities from Spanish-language radio, with Luisa Torres of WIND and Alberto Augusto of WOJO as anchors for the new 10 p.m. broadcast. However, Telemundo fired them in April 1996 as part of budget cuts; at the same time, the station purchased a new vehicle for electronic news gathering.

While news ratings also suffered from the entrance of WGBO, channel 44 began to show signs of ratings growth in the 2000s. In January 2001, WSNS launched its first morning newscast,  (Good Morning Chicago); a second attempt to air a morning newscast under the title  was dropped in 2009 because of budget cuts. It also experimented in 2008 with a 10:30 a.m. mid-morning newscast hosted by Tsi-Tsi-Ki Félix; this evolved into an entertainment and lifestyle program known as . Félix, who anchored news and weather for WSNS for 11 years, left the station in November 2012.

In August 2013, Edna Schmidt (who previously reported for WGBO before becoming a Chicago-based correspondent for Univision Noticias) was named co-anchor of the 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts, only to be fired by the station that October after anchoring a newscast while intoxicated. Schmidt then filed a lawsuit against the station that November, charging WSNS and NBCUniversal with failing to provide "reasonable accommodation" for her alcoholism under the Americans with Disabilities Act, leading to her suspension and later dismissal. On September 18, 2014, Telemundo announced that it would expand its early-evening newscast to one hour, with the addition of a half-hour program at 4:30 p.m., as part of a groupwide news expansion across Telemundo's owned-and-operated stations. A 4:00 p.m. half-hour was added in 2016, again as part of a national expansion in the group. Weekend newscasts were added in 2017, and a midday newscast was introduced in January 2018 in Chicago and nine other cities.

On June 29, 2015, as part of a national rollout, WSNS launched a consumer investigative unit under the  (Telemundo Responds) banner; the unit was originally headed by chief investigative reporter Alba Mendiola, who joined the station as a general assignment reporter in 2001 and formerly hosted Enfoque Chicago, the station's public affairs program.

Sports programming
Though sporting events are less prevalent on its schedule than when it was an English-language station, WSNS-TV has occasionally broadcast local sports. Chicago Sting soccer was telecast on WSNS-TV in 1986. More recently, the station has been part of media rights deals with WMAQ-TV. As part of a five-year broadcast partnership between WMAQ-TV and the Chicago Bears, WSNS aired Spanish-language broadcasts of the Bears' preseason football games from 2003 to 2007. It was the first time that Bears preseason games had been televised in Spanish. After five years, the Bears moved their preseason games in English from WMAQ to WFLD. As part of another rights deal, WSNS-TV began broadcasting the Chicago Marathon in 2017; WMAQ had been airing the marathon continuously since 2008. The marathon had previously aired on channel 44 in 2002.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion
WSNS-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 44, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 45.

Spectrum reallocation
In 2017, NBC sold WSNS-TV's spectrum in the FCC's spectrum reallocation auction, fetching $141.7 million. WSNS-TV ceased broadcasting on UHF digital channel 45 on April 23, 2018, and began sharing spectrum with WMAQ-TV on channel 29.

References

External links

Television channels and stations established in 1970
Television stations in Chicago
Telemundo Station Group
SNS-TV
1970 establishments in Illinois
TeleXitos affiliates
Former General Electric subsidiaries
Oak Industries
ON TV (TV network)

WSNS-TV


Chitetsu Watanabe (渡邉智哲; Watanabe Chitetsu, 5 March 1907 – 23 February 2020) was a Japanese farmer and supercentenarian.

Born on 5 March 1907 in the village of Uragawara, which now is Joetsu, in Niigata Prefecture, Japan to farmers, Watanabe studied at Niigata Prefectural Takada Agricultural High School before moving to Taiwan where he lived and worked for the sugarcane company Dai-Nippon Sugar Company though until the end of World War II when he returned to Jōetsu. He lived with his son's family until 2015 when he aged 108 got infected by influenza and moved to a retirement home. He had in total 5 children, 12 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild, who was born on 15 January 2019, just five days before 113-year-old Hokkaido man Masazō Nonaka's death, upon which Watanabe became the oldest living man, although German World War II-veteran Gustav Gerneth (15 October 1905? – 22 October 2019) and Mexican Domingo Villa Avisencio (26 August 1906? – 3 November 2019) claimed to be older. He was officially recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest living man on 12 February 2020, and believed the secret to a long life was laughing often, forgetting bad things and avoiding to get angry, and said on his 112th birthday in early March 2019 that he wanted to try his best to eat delicious healthy food until age 120 and might eat his own food except hard food and liked sweet food.

Watanabe died 11:10 p.m. the late evening of 23 February 2020, just eleven days before his 113th birthday, and was succeeded as the oldest living man by Englishman Robert Weighton.

References

1907 births
2020 deaths
Japanese supercentenarians
People from Niigata Prefecture

Chitetsu Watanabe


Lake Washington () is a large freshwater lake adjacent to the city of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the largest lake in King County and the second largest natural lake in the state of Washington, after Lake Chelan. It borders the cities of Seattle on the west, Bellevue and Kirkland on the east, Renton on the south, and Kenmore on the north, and encloses Mercer Island. The lake is fed by the Sammamish River at its north end and the Cedar River at its south.

Lake Washington has been known to the Duwamish and other Indigenous peoples living on the lake for millenia as  (lit. "lake" in Lushootseed). At the time of European settlement, it was recorded as At-sar-kal in a map sketched by engineer Abiel W. Tinkham; and the Chinook Jargon name,  ("great/large water"), was also used. Other English names historically used for the lake include Lake Geneva by Isaac N. Ebey; and Lake Duwamish in railroad surveys under Governor Isaac Stevens. Lake Washington received its present name in 1854 after Thomas Mercer suggested it be named after George Washington, as the new Washington Territory had been named the year before.

The lake provides boating and sport fishing opportunities. Some fish species found in its waters include sockeye salmon, coho salmon, Chinook salmon, rainbow trout, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, yellow perch, and black crappie.

Lake Washington has two passenger seaplane bases: Kenmore Air Harbor on its north end; and Will Rogers – Wiley Post Memorial Seaplane Base on its south end, adjacent to Renton Municipal Airport.

Geography
A ribbon lake, Lake Washington is long, narrow and finger-like. Ribbon lakes are excavated by glaciers. As the Puget lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet flowed south near the end of the Late Pleistocene, it met bands of harder and softer rock. Erosion of the softer rock was faster and a linear depression was created in the flow direction. When the glacier melted, the lake filled with the meltwater, which was retained by moraine deposits. A dam can also be created by the bands of harder rock either side of the softer rock. There is usually a river at both ends of a ribbon lake, one being the inlet, and the other the outlet, but in the case of present-day Lake Washington, inlet rivers are at both ends, and a man-made outlet is in the middle.  The lake was previously drained by the Black river to the south.

Creeks and rivers

The main inflowing rivers are the Sammamish and Cedar Rivers, with the Cedar supplying most of the water.  Seasonal changes in the flow of the Sammamish are moderated by a weir at the Lake Sammamish inlet.

The lake is drained by the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

In addition, there are numerous small creeks and rivers which feed the lake, including:

 Coal Creek
 Denny Creek (O.O. Denny Park)
 Fairweather Creek
 Forbes Creek
 Juanita Creek
 Kelsey Creek
 Little Creek
 Lyon Creek
 Mapes Creek
 May Creek
 McAleer Creek
 Mercer Slough
 Ravenna Creek
 Taylor Creek
 Thornton Creek
 Yarrow Creek
 Yesler Creek

Historically, construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal drastically changed the inflow and outflow of the lake.  Before construction of the canal in 1916, Lake Washington's outlet was the Black River, which joined the Duwamish River and emptied into Elliott Bay. When the canal was opened the level of the lake dropped nearly nine feet (2.7 m). The canal became the lake's sole outlet, causing the Black River to dry up and disappear.  Before construction, the Sammamish River was the primary source of water for Lake Washington, and the lowering of the lake slightly increased its flow.  As part of the ship canal project, the Cedar River was diverted into Lake Washington to become the lake's primary source.

Canals and bridges

The Montlake Cut, part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, connects the lake to Lake Union and ultimately Puget Sound.

Concrete floating bridges are employed to span the lake because Lake Washington's depth and muddy bottom prevented the emplacement of the pilings or towers necessary for the construction of a causeway or suspension bridge. The bridges consist of hollow concrete pontoons that float atop the lake, anchored with cables to each other and to weights on the lake bottom. The roadway is constructed atop these concrete pontoons. Three floating bridges cross Lake Washington: the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (officially the SR 520 Albert D. Rosellini Evergreen Point Floating Bridge) carries State Route 520 from Seattle's Montlake neighborhood to Medina while the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge and the Third Lake Washington Bridge (officially the Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge) carry Interstate 90 from Seattle's Mount Baker neighborhood to Mercer Island. The East Channel Bridge carries Interstate 90 from Mercer Island to Bellevue. The Evergreen Point, Lacey V. Murrow, and Third Lake Washington bridges are the longest, second longest, and fifth longest floating bridges in the world, respectively.

Many questioned the wisdom of concrete floating bridge technology after the sinking of a portion of the Lacey V. Murrow bridge on November 25, 1990. However, a Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) investigation revealed that the incident resulted from the improper handling of hydrodemolition water being used during bridge renovations, rather than in any basic flaw in the bridge's concept or design. Concrete floating bridges continue to remain a viable means for the conveyance of vehicle traffic over Lake Washington.

In 1950, approximately one year after the tolls were removed from the Murrow bridge, the inland ferry system on the lake came to an end, having operated since the 1880s.

Shoreline cities and towns

The cities and towns bordering the lake, going clockwise from the west, are Seattle, Lake Forest Park, Kenmore, Kirkland, Yarrow Point, Hunts Point, Medina, Bellevue, Beaux Arts Village, and Renton. The city of Mercer Island occupies the island of the same name, in the southern half of the lake.

Water purity
Around 1900, Seattle began discharging sewage into Lake Washington. During the 1940s and 1950s, eleven sewage treatment plants were sending state-of-the-art treated water into the lake at a rate of 20 million gallons per day. At the same time, phosphate-based detergents came into wide use. The lake responded to the massive input of nutrients by developing unpleasant blooms of noxious blue-green algae (cyanobacteria). The water lost its clarity, the desirable fish populations declined, and masses of dead algae accumulated on the shores of the lake. After significant pollution, the October 5, 1963 issue of the Post Intelligencer referred to the lake as "Lake Stinko". Citizen concern led to the creation of a system that diverted the treatment-plant effluents into nearby Puget Sound, where tidal flushing would mix them with open-ocean water.

The diversion was completed in 1968, and the lake responded quickly. The algal blooms diminished, the water regained its clarity, and by 1975, recovery was complete. Careful studies by a group of limnologists from the University of Washington showed that phosphate was the culprit. Since then, Lake Washington has undergone major improvements, drastically improving the ecology and water quality, making the water twice as clear as it was in 1950.

See also
Mount Baker Crew rowing club
Seafair Cup hydroplane races

Notes

References

Washington
Washington
Seattle metropolitan area

Lake Washington


Intensive animal farming, industrial livestock production, and macro-farms, also known by opponents as factory farming,  is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while minimizing costs. To achieve this, agribusinesses keep livestock such as cattle, poultry, and fish at high stocking densities, at large scale, and using modern machinery, biotechnology, and global trade. The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption. There are issues regarding whether intensive animal farming is sustainable in the social long-run given its costs in resources. Analysts also raise issues about its ethics.

There is a continuing debate over the benefits, risks and ethics of intensive animal farming. The issues include the efficiency of food production, animal welfare, health risks and the environmental impact (e.g. agricultural pollution and climate change).

History

Intensive animal farming is a relatively recent development in the history of agriculture, utilizing scientific discoveries and technological advances to enable changes in agricultural methods that increase production. Innovations from the late 19th century generally parallel developments in mass production in other industries in the latter part of the Industrial Revolution. The discovery of vitamins and their role in animal nutrition, in the first two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which allowed chickens to be raised indoors. The discovery of antibiotics and vaccines facilitated raising livestock in larger numbers by reducing disease. Chemicals developed for use in World War II gave rise to synthetic pesticides. Developments in shipping networks and technology have made long-distance distribution of agricultural produce feasible.

Agricultural production across the world doubled four times between 1820 and 1975 (1820 to 1920; 1920 to 1950; 1950 to 1965; and 1965 to 1975) to feed a global population of one billion human beings in 1800 and 6.5 billion in 2002. During the same period, the number of people involved in farming dropped as the process became more automated. In the 1930s, 24 percent of the American population worked in agriculture compared to 1.5 percent in 2002; in 1940, each farm worker supplied 11 consumers, whereas in 2002, each worker supplied 90 consumers.

The era of factory farming in Britain began in 1947 when a new Agriculture Act granted subsidies to farmers to encourage greater output by introducing new technology, in order to reduce Britain's reliance on imported meat. The United Nations writes that "intensification of animal production was seen as a way of providing food security." In 1966, the United States, United Kingdom and other industrialized nations, commenced factory farming of beef and dairy cattle and domestic pigs. From its American and West European heartland, intensive animal farming became globalized in the later years of the 20th century and is still expanding and replacing traditional practices of stock rearing in an increasing number of countries. In 1990 intensive animal farming accounted for 30% of world meat production and by 2005,this had risen to 40%.

Types

Intensive farms hold large numbers of animals, typically cows, pigs, turkeys, geese, or chickens, often indoors, typically at high densities. The aim is to produce large quantities of meat, eggs, or milk at the lowest possible cost. Food is supplied in place. Methods employed to maintain health and improve production may include the use of disinfectants, antimicrobial agents, anthelmintics, hormones and vaccines; protein, mineral and vitamin supplements; frequent health inspections; biosecurity; and climate-controlled facilities. Physical restraints, for example, fences or creeps, are used to control movement or actions regarded as undesirable. Breeding programs are used to produce animals more suited to the confined conditions and able to provide a consistent food product.

Intensive production of livestock and poultry is widespread in developed nations. For 2002–2003, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates of industrial production as a percentage of global production were 7 percent for beef and veal, 0.8 percent for sheep and goat meat, 42 percent for pork, and 67 percent for poultry meat. Industrial production was estimated to account for 39 percent of the sum of global production of these meats and 50 percent of total egg production. In the US, according to its National Pork Producers Council, 80 million of its 95 million pigs slaughtered each year are reared in industrial settings.

Chickens

The major milestone in 20th-century poultry production was the discovery of vitamin D, which made it possible to keep chickens in confinement year-round. Before this, chickens did not thrive during the winter (due to lack of sunlight), and egg production, incubation, and meat production in the off-season were all very difficult, making poultry a seasonal and expensive proposition. Year-round production lowered costs, especially for broilers.

At the same time, egg production was increased by scientific breeding. After a few false starts, (such as the Maine Experiment Station's failure at improving egg production) success was shown by Professor Dryden at the Oregon Experiment Station.

Improvements in production and quality were accompanied by lower labor requirements. In the 1930s through the early 1950s, 1,500 hens provided a full-time job for a farm family in America. In the late 1950s, egg prices had fallen so dramatically that farmers typically tripled the number of hens they kept, putting three hens into what had been a single-bird cage or converting their floor-confinement houses from a single deck of roosts to triple-decker roosts. Not long after this, prices fell still further and large numbers of egg farmers left the business. This fall in profitability was accompanied by a general fall in prices to the consumer, allowing poultry and eggs to lose their status as luxury foods.

Robert Plamondon reports that the last family chicken farm in his part of Oregon, Rex Farms, had 30,000 layers and survived into the 1990s. However, the standard laying house of the current operators is around 125,000 hens.

The vertical integration of the egg and poultry industries was a late development, occurring after all the major technological changes had been in place for years (including the development of modern broiler rearing techniques, the adoption of the Cornish Cross broiler, the use of laying cages, etc.).

By the late 1950s, poultry production had changed dramatically. Large farms and packing plants could grow birds by the tens of thousands. Chickens could be sent to slaughterhouses for butchering and processing into prepackaged commercial products to be frozen or shipped fresh to markets or wholesalers. Meat-type chickens currently grow to market weight in six to seven weeks, whereas only fifty years ago it took three times as long. This is due to genetic selection and nutritional modifications (but not the use of growth hormones, which are illegal for use in poultry in the US and many other countries, and have no effect). Once a meat consumed only occasionally, the common availability and lower cost has made chicken a common meat product within developed nations. Growing concerns over the cholesterol content of red meat in the 1980s and 1990s further resulted in increased consumption of chicken.

Today, eggs are produced on large egg ranches on which environmental parameters are well controlled. Chickens are exposed to artificial light cycles to stimulate egg production year-round. In addition, forced molting is commonly practiced in the US, in which manipulation of light and food access triggers molting, in order to increase egg size and production. Forced molting is controversial, and is prohibited in the EU.

On average, a chicken lays one egg a day, but not on every day of the year. This varies with the breed and time of year. In 1900, average egg production was 83 eggs per hen per year. In 2000, it was well over 300. In the United States, laying hens are butchered after their second egg laying season. In Europe, they are generally butchered after a single season. The laying period begins when the hen is about 18–20 weeks old (depending on breed and season). Males of the egg-type breeds have little commercial value at any age, and all those not used for breeding (roughly fifty percent of all egg-type chickens) are killed soon after hatching. The old hens also have little commercial value. Thus, the main sources of poultry meat 100 years ago (spring chickens and stewing hens) have both been entirely supplanted by meat-type broiler chickens.

Pigs

In America, intensive piggeries (or hog lots) are a type of concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), specialized for the raising of domestic pigs up to slaughter weight. In this system, grower pigs are housed indoors in group-housing or straw-lined sheds, whilst pregnant sows are confined in sow stalls (gestation crates) and give birth in farrowing crates.

The use of sow stalls has resulted in lower production costs and concomitant animal welfare concerns. Many of the world's largest producers of pigs (such as U.S. and Canada) use sow stalls, but some nations (such as the UK) and U.S. states (such as Florida and Arizona) have banned them.

Intensive piggeries are generally large warehouse-like buildings. Indoor pig systems allow the pig's condition to be monitored, ensuring minimum fatalities and increased productivity. Buildings are ventilated and their temperature regulated. Most domestic pig varieties are susceptible to heat stress, and all pigs lack sweat glands and cannot cool themselves. Pigs have a limited tolerance to high temperatures and heat stress can lead to death. Maintaining a more specific temperature within the pig-tolerance range also maximizes growth and growth to feed ratio. In an intensive operation pigs will lack access to a wallow (mud), which is their natural cooling mechanism. Intensive piggeries control temperature through ventilation or drip water systems (dropping water to cool the system).

Pigs are naturally omnivorous and are generally fed a combination of grains and protein sources (soybeans, or meat and bone meal). Larger intensive pig farms may be surrounded by farmland where feed-grain crops are grown. Alternatively, piggeries are reliant on the grains industry. Pig feed may be bought packaged or mixed on-site. The intensive piggery system, where pigs are confined in individual stalls, allows each pig to be allotted a portion of feed. The individual feeding system also facilitates individual medication of pigs through feed. This has more significance to intensive farming methods, as the close proximity to other animals enables diseases to spread more rapidly. To prevent disease spreading and encourage growth, drug programs such as antibiotics, vitamins, hormones and other supplements are preemptively administered.

Indoor systems, especially stalls and pens (i.e. 'dry', not straw-lined systems) allow for the easy collection of waste. In an indoor intensive pig farm, manure can be managed through a lagoon system or other waste-management system. However, odor remains a problem which is difficult to manage.

The way animals are housed in intensive systems varies. Breeding sows spend the bulk of their time in sow stalls during pregnancy or farrowing crates, with their litters, until market.

Piglets often receive range of treatments including castration, tail docking to reduce tail biting, teeth clipped (to reduce injuring their mother's nipples, gum disease and prevent later tusk growth) and their ears notched to assist identification. Treatments are usually made without pain killers. Weak runts may be slain shortly after birth.

Piglets also may be weaned and removed from the sows at between two and five weeks old and placed in sheds. However, grower pigs – which comprise the bulk of the herd – are usually housed in alternative indoor housing, such as batch pens. During pregnancy, the use of a stall may be preferred as it facilitates feed-management and growth control. It also prevents pig aggression (e.g. tail biting, ear biting, vulva biting, food stealing). Group pens generally require higher stockmanship skills. Such pens will usually not contain straw or other material. Alternatively, a straw-lined shed may house a larger group (i.e. not batched) in age groups.

Cattle

Cattle are domesticated ungulates, a member of the family Bovidae, in the subfamily Bovinae, and descended from the aurochs (Bos primigenius). They are raised as livestock for their flesh (called beef and veal), dairy products (milk), leather and as draught animals. As of 2009–2010 it is estimated that there are 1.3–1.4 billion head of cattle in the world.

The most common interactions with cattle involve daily feeding, cleaning and milking. Many routine husbandry practices involve ear tagging, dehorning, loading, medical operations, vaccinations and hoof care, as well as training and sorting for agricultural shows and sales.

Once cattle obtain an entry-level weight, about , they are transferred from the range to a feedlot to be fed a specialized animal feed which consists of corn byproducts (derived from ethanol production), barley, and other grains as well as alfalfa and cottonseed meal. The feed also contains premixes composed of microingredients such as vitamins, minerals, chemical preservatives, antibiotics, fermentation products, and other essential ingredients that are purchased from premix companies, usually in sacked form, for blending into commercial rations. Because of the availability of these products, a farmer using their own grain can formulate their own rations and be assured the animals are getting the recommended levels of minerals and vitamins.

There are many potential impacts on human health due to the modern cattle industrial agriculture system. There are concerns surrounding the antibiotics and growth hormones used, increased E. coli contamination, higher saturated fat contents in the meat because of the feed, and also environmental concerns.

As of 2010, in the U.S. 766,350 producers participate in raising beef. The beef industry is segmented with the bulk of the producers participating in raising beef calves. Beef calves are generally raised in small herds, with over 90% of the herds having less than 100 head of cattle. Fewer producers participate in the finishing phase which often occurs in a feedlot, but nonetheless there are 82,170 feedlots in the United States.

Aquaculture

Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA), also called integrated aquaculture, is a practice in which the by-products (wastes) from one species are recycled to become inputs (fertilizers, food) for another, making aquaculture intensive. Fed aquaculture (e.g. fish and shrimp) is combined with inorganic extractive (e.g. seaweed) and organic extractive (e.g. shellfish) aquaculture to create balanced systems for environmental sustainability (biomitigation), economic stability (product diversification and risk reduction) and social acceptability (better management practices).

The system is multi-trophic as it makes use of species from different trophic or nutritional level, unlike traditional aquaculture.

Ideally, the biological and chemical processes in such a system should balance. This is achieved through the appropriate selection and proportions of different species providing different ecosystem functions. The co-cultured species should not just be biofilters, but harvestable crops of commercial value. A working IMTA system should result in greater production for the overall system, based on mutual benefits to the co-cultured species and improved ecosystem health, even if the individual production of some of the species is lower compared to what could be reached in monoculture practices over a short-term period.

Regulation

In various jurisdictions, intensive animal production of some kinds is subject to regulation for environmental protection. In the United States, a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) that discharges or proposes to discharge waste requires a permit and implementation of a plan for management of manure nutrients, contaminants, wastewater, etc., as applicable, to meet requirements pursuant to the federal Clean Water Act. Some data on regulatory compliance and enforcement are available. In 2000, the US Environmental Protection Agency published 5-year and 1-year data on environmental performance of 32 industries, with data for the livestock industry being derived mostly from inspections of CAFOs. The data pertain to inspections and enforcement mostly under the Clean Water Act, but also under the Clean Air Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Of the 32 industries, livestock production was among the top seven for environmental performance over the 5-year period, and was one of the top two in the final year of that period, where good environmental performance is indicated by a low ratio of enforcement orders to inspections. The five-year and final-year ratios of enforcement/inspections for the livestock industry were 0.05 and 0.01, respectively. Also in the final year, the livestock industry was one of the two leaders among the 32 industries in terms of having the lowest percentage of facilities with violations. In Canada, intensive livestock operations are subject to provincial regulation, with definitions of regulated entities varying among provinces. Examples include Intensive Livestock Operations (Saskatchewan), Confined Feeding Operations (Alberta), Feedlots (British Columbia), High-density Permanent Outdoor Confinement Areas (Ontario) and Feedlots or Parcs d'Engraissement (Manitoba). In Canada, intensive animal production, like other agricultural sectors, is also subject to various other federal and provincial requirements.

In the United States, farmed animals are excluded by half of all state animal cruelty laws including the federal Animal Welfare Act. The 28-hour law, enacted in 1873 and amended in 1994 states that when animals are being transported for slaughter, the vehicle must stop every 28 hours and the animals must be let out for exercise, food, and water. The United States Department of Agriculture claims that the law does not apply to birds. The Humane Slaughter Act is similarly limited. Originally passed in 1958, the Act requires that livestock be stunned into unconsciousness prior to slaughter. This Act also excludes birds, who make up more than 90 percent of the animals slaughtered for food, as well as rabbits and fish. Individual states all have their own animal cruelty statutes; however many states have right-to-farm laws that serve as a provision to exempt standard agricultural practices.

In the United States there is an attempt to regulate farms in the most realistic way possible. The easiest way to effectively regulate the most animals with a limited number of resources and time is to regulate the large farms. In New York State many Animal Feeding Operations are not considered CAFOs since they either have less than 300 cows. These farms are not regulated to the level that CAFOs are. This can lead to pollution and nutrient leaching. The EPA website illustrates the scale of this problem by saying in New York State's Bay watershed there are 247 animal feeding operations and only 68 of them are State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) permitted CAFOs.

In Ohio animal welfare organizations reached a negotiated settlement with farm organizations while in California, Proposition 2, Standards for Confining Farm Animals, an initiated law was approved by voters in 2008. Regulations have been enacted in other states and plans are underway for referendum and lobbying campaigns in other states.

An action plan was proposed by the USDA in February 2009, called the Utilization of Manure and Other Agricultural and Industrial Byproducts. This program's goal is to protect the environment and human and animal health by using manure in a safe and effective manner. In order for this to happen, several actions need to be taken and these four components include:
 Improving the Usability of Manure Nutrients through More Effective Animal Nutrition and Management
 Maximizing the Value of Manure through Improved Collection, Storage, and Treatment Options
 Utilizing Manure in Integrated Farming Systems to Improve Profitability and Protect Soil, Water, and Air Quality
 Using Manure and Other Agricultural Byproducts as a Renewable Energy Source

In 2012 Australia's largest supermarket chain, Coles, announced that as of January 1, 2013, they will stop selling company branded pork and eggs from animals kept in factory farms. The nation's other dominant supermarket chain, Woolworths, has already begun phasing out factory farmed animal products. All of Woolworth's house brand eggs are now cage-free, and by mid-2013 all of their pork will come from farmers who operate stall-free farms.

In June 2021, the European Commission announced the plan of a ban on cages for a number of animals, including egg-laying hens, female breeding pigs, calves raised for veal, rabbits, ducks, and geese, by 2027.

Controversies and criticisms
Advocates of factory farming claim that factory farming has led to the betterment of housing, nutrition, and disease control over the last twenty years; however, these claims have been debunked. It has been shown that factory farming harms wildlife, the environment, creates health risks, abuses animals, exploits workers (in particular undocumented workers), and raises very severe ethical issues.

Animal welfare

In the UK, the Farm Animal Welfare Council was set up by the government to act as an independent advisor on animal welfare in 1979 and expresses its policy as five freedoms: from hunger and thirst; from discomfort; from pain, injury or disease; to express normal behavior; from fear and distress.

There are differences around the world as to which practices are accepted and there continue to be changes in regulations with animal welfare being a strong driver for increased regulation. For example, the EU is bringing in further regulation to set maximum stocking densities for meat chickens by 2010,  where the UK Animal Welfare Minister commented, "The welfare of meat chickens is a major concern to people throughout the European Union. This agreement sends a strong message to the rest of the world that we care about animal welfare."

Factory farming is greatly debated throughout Australia, with many people disagreeing with the methods and ways in which the animals in factory farms are treated. Animals are often under stress from being kept in confined spaces and will attack each other. In an effort to prevent injury leading to infection, their beaks, tails and teeth are removed. Many piglets will die of shock after having their teeth and tails removed, because painkilling medicines are not used in these operations. Factory farms are a popular way to gain space, with animals such as chickens being kept in spaces smaller than an A4 page.

For example, in the UK, debeaking of chickens is deprecated, but it is recognized that it is a method of last resort, seen as better than allowing vicious fighting and ultimately cannibalism. Between 60 and 70 percent of six million breeding sows in the U.S. are confined during pregnancy, and for most of their adult lives, in  gestation crates. According to pork producers and many veterinarians, sows will fight if housed in pens. The largest pork producer in the U.S. said in January 2007 that it will phase out gestation crates by 2017. They are being phased out in the European Union, with a ban effective in 2013 after the fourth week of pregnancy. With the evolution of factory farming, there has been a growing awareness of the issues amongst the wider public, not least due to the efforts of animal rights and welfare campaigners. As a result, gestation crates, one of the more contentious practices, are the subject of laws in the U.S., Europe and around the world to phase out their use as a result of pressure to adopt less confined practices.

Death rates for sows have been increasing in the US from prolapse, which has been attributed to intensive breeding practices. Sows produce on average 23 piglets a year.

In the United States alone, over 20 million chickens, 330,000 pigs and 166,000 cattle die during transport to slaughterhouses annually, and some 800,000 pigs are incapable of walking upon arrival. This is often due to being exposed to extreme temperatures and trauma.

Human health impact
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), farms on which animals are intensively reared can cause adverse health reactions in farm workers. Workers may develop acute and chronic lung disease, musculoskeletal injuries, and may catch infections that transmit from animals to human beings (such as tuberculosis).

Pesticides are used to control organisms which are considered harmful and they save farmers money by preventing product losses to pests. In the US, about a quarter of pesticides used are used in houses, yards, parks, golf courses, and swimming pools and about 70% are used in agriculture. However, pesticides can make their way into consumers' bodies which can cause health problems. One source of this is bioaccumulation in animals raised on factory farms.

"Studies have discovered an increase in respiratory, neurobehavioral, and mental illnesses among the residents of communities next to factory farms."

The CDC writes that chemical, bacterial, and viral compounds from animal waste may travel in the soil and water. Residents near such farms report problems such as unpleasant smell, flies and adverse health effects.

The CDC has identified a number of pollutants associated with the discharge of animal waste into rivers and lakes, and into the air. Antibiotic use in livestock may create antibiotic-resistant pathogens; parasites, bacteria, and viruses may be spread; ammonia, nitrogen, and phosphorus can reduce oxygen in surface waters and contaminate drinking water; pesticides and hormones may cause hormone-related changes in fish; animal feed and feathers may stunt the growth of desirable plants in surface waters and provide nutrients to disease-causing micro-organisms; trace elements such as arsenic and copper, which are harmful to human health, may contaminate surface waters.

Zoonotic diseases such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which caused the COVID-19 pandemic, are increasingly linked to environmental changes associated with intensive animal farming. The disruption of pristine forests driven by logging, mining, road building through remote places, rapid urbanisation and population growth is bringing people into closer contact with animal species they may never have been near before. According to Kate Jones, chair of ecology and biodiversity at University College London, the resulting transmission of disease from wildlife to humans is now "a hidden cost of human economic development".

Intensive farming may make the evolution and spread of harmful diseases easier. Many communicable animal diseases spread rapidly through densely spaced populations of animals and crowding makes genetic reassortment more likely. However, small family farms are more likely to introduce bird diseases and more frequent association with people into the mix, as happened in the 2009 flu pandemic.

In the European Union, growth hormones are banned on the basis that there is no way of determining a safe level. The UK has stated that in the event of the EU raising the ban at some future date, to comply with a precautionary approach, it would only consider the introduction of specific hormones, proven on a case-by-case basis. In 1998, the EU banned feeding animals antibiotics that were found to be valuable for human health. Furthermore, in 2006 the EU banned all drugs for livestock that were used for growth promotion purposes. As a result of these bans, the levels of antibiotic resistance in animal products and within the human population showed a decrease.

The international trade in animal products increases the risk of global transmission of virulent diseases such as swine fever, BSE, foot and mouth and bird flu.

In the United States, the use of antibiotics in livestock is still prevalent. The FDA reports that 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in 2009 were administered to livestock animals, and that many of these antibiotics are identical or closely related to drugs used for treating illnesses in humans. Consequently, many of these drugs are losing their effectiveness on humans, and the total healthcare costs associated with drug-resistant bacterial infections in the United States are between $16.6 billion and $26 billion annually.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been identified in pigs and humans raising concerns about the role of pigs as reservoirs of MRSA for human infection. One study found that 20% of pig farmers in the United States and Canada in 2007 harbored MRSA. A second study revealed that 81% of Dutch pig farms had pigs with MRSA and 39% of animals at slaughter carried the bug were all of the infections were resistant to tetracycline and many were resistant to other antimicrobials. A more recent study found that MRSA ST398 isolates were less susceptible to tiamulin, an antimicrobial used in agriculture, than other MRSA or methicillin susceptible S. aureus. Cases of MRSA have increased in livestock animals. CC398 is a new clone of MRSA that has emerged in animals and is found in intensively reared production animals (primarily pigs, but also cattle and poultry), where it can be transmitted to humans. Although dangerous to humans, CC398 is often asymptomatic in food-producing animals.

A 2011 nationwide study reported nearly half of the meat and poultry sold in U.S. grocery stores – 47 percent – was contaminated with S. aureus, and more than half of those bacteria – 52 percent – were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics. Although Staph should be killed with proper cooking, it may still pose a risk to consumers through improper food handling and cross-contamination in the kitchen. The senior author of the study said, "The fact that drug-resistant S. aureus was so prevalent, and likely came from the food animals themselves, is troubling, and demands attention to how antibiotics are used in food-animal production today."

In April 2009, lawmakers in the Mexican state of Veracruz accused large-scale hog and poultry operations of being breeding grounds of a pandemic swine flu, although they did not present scientific evidence to support their claim. A swine flu which quickly killed more than 100 infected persons in that area, appears to have begun in the vicinity of a Smithfield subsidiary pig CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation).

Environmental impact

Intensive factory farming has grown to become the biggest threat to the global environment through the loss of ecosystem services and global warming. It is a major driver to global environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. The process in which feed needs to be grown for animal use only is often grown using intensive methods which involve a significant amount of fertiliser and pesticides. This sometimes results in the pollution of water, soil and air by agrochemicals and manure waste, and use of limited resources such as water and energy at unsustainable rates. Entomophagy is evaluated by many experts as a sustainable solution to traditional livestock, and, if intensively farmed on a large-scale, would cause a far-lesser amount of environmental damage.

Industrial production of pigs and poultry is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions and is predicted to become more so. On intensive pig farms, the animals are generally kept on concrete with slats or grates for the manure to drain through. The manure is usually stored in slurry form (slurry is a liquid mixture of urine and feces). During storage on farm, slurry emits methane and when manure is spread on fields it emits nitrous oxide and causes nitrogen pollution of land and water. Poultry manure from factory farms emits high levels of nitrous oxide and ammonia.

Large quantities and concentrations of waste are produced. Air quality and groundwater are at risk when animal waste is improperly recycled.

Environmental impacts of factory farming include:
 Deforestation for animal feed production
 Unsustainable pressure on land for production of high-protein/high-energy animal feed
 Pesticide, herbicide and fertilizer manufacture and use for feed production
 Unsustainable use of water for feed-crops, including groundwater extraction
 Pollution of soil, water and air by nitrogen and phosphorus from fertiliser used for feed-crops and from manure
 Land degradation (reduced fertility, soil compaction, increased salinity, desertification)
 Loss of biodiversity due to eutrophication, acidification, pesticides and herbicides
 Worldwide reduction of genetic diversity of livestock and loss of traditional breeds
 Species extinctions due to livestock-related habitat destruction (especially feed-cropping)

Labor

Small farmers are often absorbed into factory farm operations, acting as contract growers for the industrial facilities. In the case of poultry contract growers, farmers are required to make costly investments in construction of sheds to house the birds, buy required feed and drugs – often settling for slim profit margins, or even losses.

Research has shown that many immigrant workers in concentrated animal farming operations (CAFOs) in the United States receive little to no job-specific training or safety and health information regarding the hazards associated with these jobs. Workers with limited English proficiency are significantly less likely to receive any work-related training, since it is often only provided in English. As a result, many workers do not perceive their jobs as dangerous. This causes inconsistent personal protective equipment (PPE) use, and can lead to workplace accidents and injuries. Immigrant workers are also less likely to report any workplace hazards and injuries.

Market concentration

The major concentration of the industry occurs at the slaughter and meat processing phase, with only four companies slaughtering and processing 81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 57 percent of pigs and 50 percent of chickens.  This concentration at the slaughter phase may be in large part due to regulatory barriers that may make it financially difficult for small slaughter plants to be built, maintained or remain in business. Factory farming may be no more beneficial to livestock producers than traditional farming because it appears to contribute to overproduction that drives down prices. Through "forward contracts" and "marketing agreements", meatpackers are able to set the price of livestock long before they are ready for production. These strategies often cause farmers to lose money, as half of all U.S. family farming operations did in 2007.

In 1967, there were one million pig farms in America; as of 2002, there were 114,000.

Many of the nation's livestock producers would like to market livestock directly to consumers but with limited USDA inspected slaughter facilities, livestock grown locally can not typically be slaughtered and processed locally.

Demonstrations

From 2011 to 2014 each year between 15,000 and 30,000 people gathered under the theme We are fed up! in Berlin to protest against industrial livestock production.

See also

 Animal–industrial complex
 Animal rights
 Animal rights movement
 Animal welfare
 Battery cage
 Cattle Health Initiative
 Cattle ranching
 Controlled-atmosphere killing
 Cultured meat
 Dominion (2018 film)
 Environmental vegetarianism
 Environmental issues with soy
 Farm Sanctuary
 Factory farming divestment
 Food systems
 Fodder
 Gestation crate
 Golden Triangle of Meat-packing
 Humane Slaughter Act
 List of foodborne illness outbreaks
 List of United States foodborne illness outbreaks
 Meat Atlas
 Mercy for Animals
 Organic farming
 Slash-and-burn
 Small-scale agriculture
 Veganism

References

External links

 Animals Used for Food, Animal Ethics
 National Agriculture Law Center – Animal Feeding Operations
 Calls to reform food system: 'Factory farming belongs in a museum'. The Guardian. May 24, 2017.

Cruelty to animals
Ethically disputed business practices towards animals
Animals
Livestock
Meat industry
Poultry farming

Intensive animal farming


Christine Charbonneau (18 October 1943 – 29 May 2014) was a French Canadian singer and songwriter.

Most popular songs
Du fil des aiguilles et du coton recorded by France Castel in 1972 and sung by Céline Dion in 1973, on her first public appearance at the age of five, at the wedding of her brother Michel. Tout va trop vite recorded by Patsy Gallant in 1972. Les femmes (Qu'y a-t-il dans le coeur des femmes) recorded by Patsy Gallant in 1974 and covered by Sheila in France in 1976. Donne l'amour recorded by Ginette Reno in 1974. Censuré recorded by Christine Charboneau in 1975. Cécile Tremblay-Matte, musicologist, recognizes Christine Charbonneau in her book La chanson écrite au féminin, as the French Canadian female songwriter who had the most songs recorded by different artists in Québec during the period of 1960 to 1980.

Early career

Born in Montreal, Quebec in 1943, Charbonneau wrote her first song at the age of twelve. She began singing professionally at La Butte à Mathieu in Val-David, Québec in 1959. She accompanied herself with a guitar like her mentor Felix Leclerc and was considered to be one of the icons of Québec song. Charbonneau was referred to as a chansonnier. She toured for several years in the Québec coffee houses called "les boites à chansons," which were proliferating at the time.

Charbonneau started giving songs to different singers, such as Ginette Ravel, one of the major artists of this epoch. She recorded Charbonneau's song L'amour, on her album "L'amour c'est comme un jour," released in 1963 on RCA Victor Records. Her song Je te chercherai was recorded by Renée Claude on (Renée Claude Volume 2), Select Records. Charbonneau made her first album with Sélect Records in 1963 : The title was "Les insolences d'une jeune femme".

On 24 June 1965, Charbonneau was invited to participate at the Saint-John-Baptiste Celebration Day, (today the National Holiday) in Québec. That year it was held exceptionally at Jarry Park in the north of Montréal. Surrounded by other artists, Charbonneau performed in front of more than forty thousand people.

Around 1967, as the "boites à chansons" were facing decline, Charbonneau continued her career at CBC Radio and CBC Television. She was invited several times on the Coast to Coast CBC Television series Chansons (TV series) produced by Anton Van de Water, where she was singing in company of many other artists including Joni Mitchell Jacques Blanchet, Margo McKinnon, Pauline Julien and Gordon Lightfoot, the Travelers In 1968, she made a third album entitled Christine with Gamma Records, and François Dompierre was her orchestra director. Later he composed a few songs for her.

In 1968, Charbonneau had her first Télévision Summer Series at CBC SRC and co-hosted with Jacques Blanchet the musical show "Tête heureuse". In 1969, she co-hosted with Blanchet a chanson radio show at CBC Radio : "Tour à tour". In August 1969, Charbonneau represented Canada at the Spa Festival in Belgium but lost the contest.

Composing for others

The 1970s are the most intensive years of her songwriter career, being marked by the recording of many of her songs with different artists. Du fil des aiguilles et du coton, Je le vois dans ma soupe, Ça m'fait du bien recorded by  France Castel on Profil Records and Trans-World Records, reached the Top Twenty Charts in Quebec and her 1973, 1974, 1975 albums are mostly Charbonneau's songs. Patsy Gallant made the charts with Tout va trop vite, Thank you come again (in French), Un jour comme les autres, Le lit qui craque, songs that gave a start to Gallant's French-language career in Quebec. In 1974 Charbonneau gave to Patsy Gallant her original song Les femmes (Qu'y a-t-il dans le cœur des femmes) which was recorded on her 1974 album "Toi l'enfant," released by Columbia Records.  Les femmes was covered by the popular French singer Sheila, who released the single Les femmes in 1976 with Carrere Records and topped the French Top Twenty. It could be found also on the album L'amour qui brûle en moi.

In 1974, Charbonneau wrote a first song for Ginette Reno, Donne l'amour, which was recorded on her album "Aimons-nous". Also in 1979, Reno recorded Oublie-moi on her album "Je ne suis qu'une chanson," produced by Melon-Miel Records, In 1980, she received 3 awards (Félix), including the bestseller album of the year (350,000 copies),  and in a few months sold  albums.

Michel Louvain and Claude Valade were back on the Quebec charts with songs written by Charbonneau. La dame en bleu on Mirabel Records was for Louvain one of the greatest hits of his career. Viens t'étendre aux creux de mes bras, Aide-moi à passer la nuit, J'ai dit non, Quand tes yeux, C'est parce que je t'aime , Est-ce si facile , Le chemin de tes rêves – all songs who have featured in the Top Ten on the Quebec charts and were among Claude Valade's hits that became standards on Quebec radio airplay. Charbonneau's biggest hit as a singer was her disco song of 1975, Censuré.

En 2008, the song Les femmes sung by Sheila was one of the chosen song for the musical background of the film Stella, by Sylvie Verheyder.

Charbonneau died of cancer on 29 May 2014.

References

1943 births
2014 deaths
Canadian women singer-songwriters
Canadian singer-songwriters
Deaths from cancer in Quebec
French Quebecers
Polydor Records artists
French-language singers of Canada
Singers from Montreal
Songwriters from Quebec
Writers from Montreal
20th-century Canadian women singers
20th-century Canadian singer-songwriters

Christine Charbonneau


Bishops' House is a half-timbered house in the Norton Lees district of the City of Sheffield, England. It was built  and is located on the southern tip of Meersbrook Park. It is one of the three surviving timber-framed houses in the city (the others being the Old Queen's Head and Broom Hall).

It is known as Bishops' House because it was said to have been built for two brothers, John and Geoffrey Blythe, both of whom became Bishops. There is, however, no evidence that they ever lived in this house—the first known resident is William Blythe, a farmer and scythe manufacturer, who was living here in 1627.

Samuel Blyth was the last of the family to live in the house, dying in 1753, after which his sons sold the house to a William Shore. The Blyth family subsequently moved to Birmingham. Notable descendants were Benjamin Blyth, Sir Arthur Blyth and Benjamin Blyth II. The house was subsequently let to a tenant farmer and his labourer, at which point the house was sub-divided into two dwellings.

In 1886 ownership passed to the Corporation (Sheffield City Council) and various recreation department employees lived in the house until 1974.

It is a Grade II* listed building and has been open as a museum since 1976, following a renovation funded by English Heritage and Sheffield City Council.  The Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust managed the building for some years until April 2011, when management of public opening, on behalf of the building's owner Sheffield City Council, was conferred to the Friends of Bishops' House.  The building is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays between 10am and 4pm.  In April 2012 Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust stopped providing educational visits and the Friends of Bishops' House began opening the house to schools also.  The displays in the house have had some recent small changes but are still curated by Museums Sheffield.  The Friends of Bishops' House is a registered charity and limited company, run entirely by volunteers.  The house contains exhibitions on life in the 16th and 17th centuries with two rooms decorated in Jacobean style.

The building is featured on the cover of local band Monkey Swallows the Universe's second album The Casket Letters.

See also
Listed buildings in Sheffield

References

External links
 Friends of Bishops' House

Houses completed in 1500
Museums established in 1976
Grade II* listed buildings in Sheffield
Country houses in South Yorkshire
Museums in Sheffield
Historic house museums in South Yorkshire
Timber framed buildings in Yorkshire

Bishops' House