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Encyclopedia: CTV television network, Category:CTV television network, Talk:CTV television network

CTV is Canada's largest privately owned English language television network. It is owned by media conglomerate Bell Globemedia.

Most viewers simply take the letters "CTV" to mean "Canadian Television". There has never been an official explanation of the initials, although this definition was used in a promotional campaign by the network in the late 1990s.

History

seealso|Bell Globemedia#History|l1=History of Baton Broadcasting / Bell

Early years

In 1958, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's government passed a new Broadcasting Act, establishing the Board of Broadcast Governors (forerunner to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) as the governing body of Canadian broadcasting, thus ending the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) dual role as regulator and broadcaster. The new board's first act was to take applications for "second" television stations in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver in response to an outcry for another programming choice. Calgary and Edmonton were served by privately owned CBC affiliates; the other six by owned-and-operated CBC stations.

The eight winners, in order of their first sign-on, were:

*CFCN-TV Calgary (September 9, 1960)
*CHAN-TV Vancouver (October 31, 1960)
*CJAY-TV (now CKY-TV) Winnipeg (November 12, 1960)
*CFTO-TV Toronto (January 1, 1961)
*CJCH-TV Halifax (January 1, 1961)
*CFCF-TV Montreal (January 20, 1961)
*CJOH-TV Ottawa (March 12, 1961)
*CBXT Edmonton (October 1, 1961)

The first seven stations were privately owned; the Edmonton station was a CBC O&O. One of the unsuccessful applicants for the Toronto licence, Spence Caldwell, immediately tried to form a network to link the seven private "second" stations plus CFRN-TV in Edmonton, which was due to lose its CBC affiliation when CBXT signed on. The seven private stations countered by forming the Independent Television Organization (ITO). In early 1961, John Bassett, owner of CFTO, won the broadcast rights to the Canadian Football League Eastern Conference. He needed a network in order to broadcast the games. After some wrangling with Bassett and the BBG, Caldwell finally had his network.

CTV Television Network Ltd. launched on October 1, 1961; composed of the seven ITO stations plus CFRN. The first program that evening was a Harry Rasky's promotional documentary on the new network. That was followed by a fall season preview program.cite news | title=Filmed Accolades Put Private TV Network on the Air | publisher=Globe and Mail | date=2 October 1961 | first=Dennis | last=Braithwaite | page=4

CTV's initial 1961-1962 season began with the following programs, five of which were Canadian productions:

#The Andy Griffith Show flagcountry|United (CBS)
#Checkmate flagcountry|United (CBS)
#Cross-Canada Barn Dance
#Malgret flagcountry|United
#The Rifleman flagcountry|United (ABC)
#Showdown
#Sing Along With Mitch flagcountry|United
#Take a Chance (a quiz show by Roy Ward Dixon adapted from radio)
#Top Cat flagcountry|United (ABC, cartoon)
#20 Questions
#Westcoast
#Whiplash

At first, flagship CFTO was the only station that carried programming live. During CBC's off-hours, CTV used CBC's microwave system to send programming to the rest of the country on tape delay. Eventually, a second microwave channel opened up, enabling live programming from coast to coast.

The CBC had objected to the network's initial name, "Canadian Television Network" (CTN), apparently claiming it had exclusive rights to the term "Canadian". The private network soon adopted an alternative, "CTV Television Network" – with "CTV" not officially standing for anything. Sources differ as to whether this occurred prior to the network launch or in fall 1962. The Globe and Mail referred to the network as CTV upon its 1961 debut.

The Caldwell-led management team immediately ran into financial trouble, and relations between the network and its stations were not smooth at first since CTV had essentially been the product of a forced marriage. For example, most of the rights to American programming rested with the ITO, not CTV. In many cases, CTV found itself competing with its own stations for the rights to programming.

Becoming a broadcasting powerhouse

Caldwell's departure in 1965 did little to alleviate the situation, and CTV soon found itself of the verge of bankruptcy. In 1966 the network's affiliates (which by this time included CJON-TV in St. John's, CKCO-TV in Kitchener and CHAB/CHRE in Moose Jaw/Regina) sought permission to buy the network and run it as a cooperative. The board readily approved the proposal, and by the start of the 1966-67 season, the stations owned their network.

By the mid-1970s, CTV had expanded its footprint across Canada, mostly by twinstick arrangements in smaller cities and with CBC affiliates switching to CTV once the CBC opened its own stations. In a unique twist, the original Saskatchewan affiliate, CHAB/CHRE, was bought by the CBC in 1968 (and eventually recalled CBKT), allowing Regina's original station, CKCK-TV, to join CTV. In 1994, the CTV cooperative became a corporation.

CTV made a name for itself in news coverage when it convinced star CBC news anchor Lloyd Robertson to switch networks in 1976. Robertson has been the network's main anchorman ever since. The network also has the country's longest-running national morning news show, Canada AM. Its weekly newsmagazine series, W-FIVE has been a fixture on the network since 1966, predating the similar American program 60 Minutes by two years.

Baton takes over

In the mid-1980s, Baton Broadcasting, owners of flagship CFTO in Toronto, began a drive to take over CTV by buying as many affiliates as possible. It had already bought CFQC-TV in Saskatoon in 1971.

One caveat, however, was the "one owner, one vote" provision of the cooperative's bylaws. Any acquisition of one station by an existing station owner triggered an automatic redistribution of the acquired station's shares among the other owners. In other words, even with CFTO, CFQC, and later CJOH and other affiliates in Saskatchewan and northern Ontario, Baton only had one vote out of eight. Nor were there any retroactive changes when CTV was restructured in 1994 (although Newfoundland Broadcasting, owner of CJON, decided to effectively relinquish its vote, reducing the number of votes to seven).

In 1996, Baton acquired CFCN (and its CTV vote) from Rogers Communications and started a joint venture with Electrohome, another major CTV affiliate (with CFRN and CKCO), allowing Baton to control its vote. The following year, Baton acquired both Electrohome's share of the joint venture and CHUM Limited's CTV-affiliated system in the Maritimes, ATV. This gave Baton a majority of shares, triggering a put option allowing the remaining affiliates to sell their CTV shares without selling their stations, which they did. Baton was now full owner of the CTV network and immediately began plastering the CTV brand across its stations, even on non-network programming, and dropped its secondary Baton Broadcast System (BBS) brand. The company changed its name to CTV Inc. in 1998, and eventually acquired two of the final three large-market stations, CKY and CFCF. (It replaced the third, CHAN, as discussed below.)

Recent history

In 2000, typical of the media convergence trend at the time, BCE Inc. acquired CTV, NetStar Communications and The Globe and Mail newspaper, combining them into a media division known as Bell Globemedia. Bell Globemedia also owns a minority share in the French-language network TQS, which broadcasts in Quebec.

CTV has legally been a "television service" in the eyes of the CRTC since 2000, when it allowed its network licence to expire. CBC Television, Radio-Canada, TVA and Aboriginal Peoples Television Network are the only official television networks in Canada.

CTV lost significant coverage in Vancouver and St. John's at the beginning of the 21st century. In 2000, CanWest Global bought the television stations of Western International Communications, which owned charter CTV affiliate CHAN in Vancouver and CHEK-TV in Victoria. A year later, after its CTV contract ran out, CanWest made CHAN the Global affiliate for all of British Columbia, taking advantage of CHAN's massive network of repeaters that cover 97% of the province. CTV shifted its programming to CIVT-TV, an independent station it already owned. Unlike CHAN, CIVT has only one transmitter covering the metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Victoria and has to rely on cable coverage to reach the rest of the province. Meanwhile, in 2002, CJON in St. John's dropped its CTV affiliation after CTV attempted to alter its affiliation agreement in a way that Newfoundland Broadcasting found unfair. CTV attempted to force CJON to pay for the minimum 40-hour block of network programming after CJON had essentially aired it free of charge for 38 years. It also increased the fees for additional CTV programming beyond what CJON claimed it could pay. Newfoundland Broadcasting also didn't want to continue to carry CTV's national advertising during these programs. It continues to hold broadcast rights to CTV's national newscasts; in exchange it provides news coverage of events in its home province to CTV.

CTV has attracted some controversy in the past because of cutbacks to its small-market stations. The four Maritime stations, known collectively as CTV Atlantic (then known as ATV), and the four Northern Ontario stations, known collectively as CTV Northern Ontario (then known as MCTV), each had their local news production cut back to one centrally-produced single newscast for each region, with only brief inserts for news of strictly local interest. This was a controversial move in all of the affected communities, especially in Northern Ontario where MCTV's newscasts were the only locally-oriented news programs in those markets. In the late 1990s, cuts were made to the news staff and productions at CTV's two small-market Saskatchewan stations, CICC-TV in Yorkton and CIPA-TV in Prince Albert. Today, the stations now simulcast supper-hour and late-night news from CKCK and CFQC respectively, placing local inserts into the newscasts.

In July 2006, CTV parent Bell Globemedia announced plans to acquire CHUM Limited, itself a former partner in CTV (via ATV), and presently one of Canada's largest broadcasters. While Bell Globemedia/CTV will likely be able to keep all of CHUM's radio stations, a number of CHUM-owned television stations will have to be sold off in order for the CRTC to approve the acquisition.

Programming

The network's programming consists mainly of hit American series (such as ER, Ghost Whisperer, Law & Order, Grey's Anatomy, CSI and Lost), but they have also had success with Canadian-made shows such as Due South, Power Play, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Corner Gas, Instant Star, The Eleventh Hour and Canadian Idol. CTV also regularly produces and airs Canadian-made television movies, often based on stories from Canadian news or Canadian history, under the banner CTV Signature Series.

News programming consists of the early, evening and nightly CTV News, and morning Canada AM, their national news programs, W-Five, their investigative news program, and Question Period, which interviews politicians and recaps political events during the week.

As well, in recent years, CTV has purchased Canadian broadcast rights to a number of American cable series, such as The Sopranos, Nip/Tuck, Punk'd, The Daily Show and The Osbournes. In many cases, CTV has been one of the few conventional broadcast networks in the world to air these series in prime time, which has attracted some controversy from Canadian media watchdogs and parents groups who object to the violence and sexual content of Nip/Tuck and The Sopranos and the profanity in The Osbournes (which, unlike originating broadcaster MTV, CTV aired uncensored). It is also the first broadcast network to broadcast MTV programming live , starting with the MTV's New Year of Music special during New Year's 2005/2006.

In late 2003, CTV started broadcasting select American programmes in 16:9 (widescreen) HDTV. It later began airing Canadian programmes in this format, such as Degrassi; as of fall 2005, all Canadian comedy/drama programming is expected to be available in this format. Currently only CFTO and CIVT have dedicated HDTV feeds (sometimes marketed as CTV HD East and West respectively), but both are available nationally via cable and satellite, and do not differ otherwise from their analog counterparts.

In early 2005, CTV was part of the consortium that won the Canadian broadcast rights to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics. This was considered a serious coup, as the rival CBC had consistently won Olympic broadcast rights from the 1996 Summer Olympics through to the 2008 Summer Olympics. CTV and tqs will be the primary broadcasters; TSN, RDS and Rogers Sportsnet will provide supplementary coverage. The broadcast headquarters for CTV's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics is likely to be CTV Vancouver Bureau, with CTV alone promising 22 hours per day during the 2010 Olympics. It is currently uncertain what CTV will do with its American programming during Olympic periods.

In June 2006, CTV and sister network TSN outbid the CBC for coverage of Canadian Curling Association events, although CTV is only expected to carry some championship-round action with TSN broadcasting most of the action.

There is much speculation that CTV may also make aggressive bids to win both the broadcast-television package for the Canadian Football League, including the Grey Cup (CBC's contract ends after the 2007 season) and the NHL Hockey Night In Canada package (CBC's contract ends after the 2007-2008 season).

On July 2, 2005, CTV broadcast 20 hours of the Live 8 concerts, which was watched by over 10.5 million people - nearly one-third the country's population - at some point during the day; the average audience, however, was much lower. According to at least one source, it was the most-watched program by this standard in Canadian history.

CTV also boasts itself to be "Canada's #1 Network", a claim that is bolstered by the strong performances in its programming and newscast in ratings; however this claim could be disputed since the Canadian broadcast rights to Canada's consistent #1 program in ratings, the Survivor series, belongs to Global. This claim was reinforced in 2004 when a press release by CTV claims that the second season finale of Canadian Idol outdrew the premiere of Survivor: Vanuatu despite the fact that the finale was two hours long, and Survivor was only one hour in length, overlapping only in the second half of the finale.

On September 21, 2006, CTV achieved notoriety for airing the second episode of the third season of Grey's Anatomy one week early, in place of the season premiere. The season premiere was aired in its entirety on September 28.

CTV stations

CTV-owned

As of mid-October 2005, all CTV-owned and operated stations have adopted a single on-air brand of CTV, rather than use their official callsigns or channel numbers on-air. When further differentiation is needed, for example, regional programming, the city or region they serve (eg. CTV Ottawa, CTV British Columbia) may be used as well. Under CRTC regulations, however, the callsign is still the station's legal name. This change is very similar to the British ITV's adoption of a single on-air network brand of ITV1 (region name).

* CIVT (Vancouver, British Columbia)
* CFCN (Calgary, Alberta)
* CFRN (Edmonton, Alberta)
* CFQC (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
* CIPA (Prince Albert, Saskatchewan)
* CKCK (Regina, Saskatchewan)
* CICC (Yorkton, Saskatchewan)
* CKY (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
* CTV Northern Ontario (formerly MCTV) (Northern Ontario)
** CHBX (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario)
** CITO (Timmins, Ontario)
** CICI (Sudbury, Ontario)
** CKNY (North Bay, Ontario)
* CKCO (Kitchener, Ontario)
* CFTO (Toronto, Ontario)
* CJOH (Ottawa, Ontario)
* CFCF (Montreal, Quebec)
* CTV Atlantic (formerly ATV) (Maritimes)
** CKLT (Saint John, New Brunswick)
** CKCW (Moncton, New Brunswick)
** CJCH (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
** CJCB (Sydney, Nova Scotia)

Regional affiliates

* CITL (Lloydminster, Alberta/Saskatchewan)
* CJBN (Kenora, Ontario)
* CHFD (Thunder Bay, Ontario)

Special cases

* CJON (St. John's, Newfoundland) (no longer affiliated with CTV, but still carries CTV's newscast and some programs)
* WZRA-CA (Oldsmar, Florida) (low-powered station in Tampa Bay area that carries CTV News, via NTV)

Alternate names

Although this is no longer the case, for many years some CTV stations were better known by colloquial names than by their official call letters (a situation that generally did not apply to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation stations). For example, CFQC Saskatoon was known as "QC8", CKCK Regina as CKTV, and former CTV affiliate CHAN in Vancouver was called BCTV. Today, most CTV affiliates are simply referred to as CTV.

Slogans and branding

* 1966: "The Colour Network"
* 1967-1974: "It's Happening on CTV"
* 1974-1987: "For Those Who Want It All"
* 1987: "CTV Entertains You"
* 1988: "The Choice of Canadians"
* 1990-1997: "Tuned In To You"
* 1997-2003: "Canadian Television"
* 2003-2005: "Canada's Watching"
* 2005-present: "Canada's Number One Network"

The network's original logo was an oval-shaped letter "C", the inside shaped like a television tube. Contained within the C were the initials "CTV". In 1966, colour programming was ushered in with a new logo, depicting a red circle containing the initial "C", a blue square with "T", and a green inverted triangle with "V". This logo has been used, albeit with minor variations, ever since.

In the years of 1998-2001, CTV used the three colours of the logo to represent its different divisions. Red represented entertainment, blue represented news, and green represented sports. After CTV's purchase of TSN, "CTV Sports" was discontinued as a distinct brand and sports programs on CTV began to use TSN's red-coloured branding. TSN's shade of red is slightly darker than CTV's red. Blue remains the news division's primary colour.

Image:CTV_original.png|The original CTV logo, used until 1966.
Image:CTV 1970s.PNG|Mid-late 1970s - early 1980s CTV logo.
Image:CTV Special Presentation.JPG|A Special Presentation from the late 1970s.
Image:CTV80s.jpg|Mid-late 1980s CTV logo.
Image:Ctv_hd.jpg|CTV HD logo