[3] CKPR stated in their application that it "would operate as an independent local station and intends to source its non-local programming".

[5] The stations' status as a locally owned twinstick accounts for some of the unique circumstances of the Thunder Bay television market.

For example, Thunder Bay was the only major market in the province in which CIII-DT and CHCH-DT did not add rebroadcasters during those stations' provincewide expansions in the 1990s; although both stations did apply for transmitters in Thunder Bay, both were declined by the CRTC due to the potential impact of out-of-market competition on Dougall's advertising revenue.

Dougall has also previously cited CTV's cost-cutting measures of the early 2000s, such as the merger of all local news on the four CTV Northern Ontario stations in Northeastern Ontario into a single newscast produced in Sudbury, as a key factor in its refusal to consider selling the stations, lest such a sale result in the loss of local programming in Thunder Bay.

On January 27, 2016, Dougall Media officials revealed that CKPR and CHFD are both being sustained by the payouts from life insurance policies on former owner Fraser Dougall and a former general manager who both died in 2015, and at the time said the stations could sign off for good by September 1, 2016, barring a favourable change in CRTC policies.