Whitehorse residents who still use rabbit ears to pick up their television signal will still be able to watch CBC and APTN, following a decision by the Canadian broadcasting regulator.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has released its decision on the mandatory switch from analog (the signal picked up on rabbit ears) to digital transmission in Canada's provincial capitals and major cities.

Last year, CBC and APTN – the only networks with transmitters in the northern capitals – announced they would not be switching their Whitehorse-based transmitters, although the CBC said it would switch its Yellowknife transmitter to digital.

But both networks were given a break when the CRTC announced last week that the six transmitters in Yellowknife and Whitehorse could remain as they are.

"Whitehorse, up until this week, was slated to shut down,” CBC spokesman Angus McKinnon said after the decision was released. "So this is good news for Whitehorse.”

McKinnon said there are no numbers available for how many Yukon residents still watch TV "over-the-air” but noted that 93 per cent of Canadian television watchers subscribe to either cable or satellite.

As for APTN customers, that company has been trying to reach out to those still on analog over the past year and get them onto the satellite or cable systems.

"We provided a (satellite) dish to every home that wanted one in the smaller communities,” Jean LaRose, APTN's chief executive officer, said this week.

"The take-up rate was quite high; I think the Yukon was the highest, with between 60 and 80 houses taking a dish.”

Those customers now receive APTN free of charge through Bell Express View, but still have to pay for whatever other channels they may want, LaRose explained.

"This is something we did over and above our root mandate,” LaRose said. "... We felt we had a moral obligation in many ways to provide the North with access to the digital format.”

An APTN survey of aboriginal people in the North found APTN was the third most popular network after the CBC and the Discovery Channel, LaRose said.

It also found that half those surveyed watched APTN daily, and more than 75 per cent watched the network at least once a week.

That will allow APTN to shut down all its smaller transmitters around the northern territories, while keeping the Whitehorse analog transmitter active "until we can come to an agreement with a cable provider without being rushed,” LaRose said.

"We've been working with various cable providers and others to ensure every house in Whitehorse can receive APTN at no cost. It's a work in progress.”

Neither LaRose nor McKinnon could say how much the switch had been expected to cost.