CTV National News

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CTV National News
The opening title for CTV National News with Lloyd Robertson from January 3, 2007.
Format	News
Created by	Charles Lynch (1961-unknown) Peter Stursberg (1961-unknown) Peter Jennings (1961-1964)
Starring	Lloyd Robertson (1976–present) Sandie Rinaldo (1985-1989 & 1991-present)
Country of origin	Canada
No. of episodes	Unknown
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	CTV
Picture format	480i (SDTV)
Original run	1961 – Present

CTV National News is CTV's flagship newscast, which airs at 11:00pm local time on the CTV stations across Canada, and live at 10:00pm ET, with repeats hourly up until 2am ET on CTV Newsnet, CTV's 24-hour cable news channel. The current anchors are Lloyd Robertson on weekdays, and Sandie Rinaldo on weekends. The title CTV National News has been rarely used since the 1990s; weeknights, the program is now called CTV News with Lloyd Robertson and on the weekends, CTV News with Sandie Rinaldo. The title CTV National News, unofficially, has been re-introduced, mainly because CTV News has become the name of both the national and local news on CTV O&O stations. Rinaldo is also the program's main weekday substitute anchor; other substitute anchors include Beverly Thomson, Tom Clark, Lisa LaFlamme, Dan Matheson and Scott Laurie.

Originally running only 20 minutes, the newscast was expanded to a full half-hour in the 1980s.

Various promotional ads have claimed it to be "Canada's #1 Newscast" (consistent with CTV's boasts of itself as being "Canada's #1 Network"); however in recent months, it has faced competition with Global National and The National in the ratings even though the three newscasts air at different times (Global National at 5:30pm, The National at 10:00 pm, and CTV National News at 11:00pm). CTV's claim to first place is based on a seven-day comparison of the newscasts' original broadcast-network airings.^{[citation needed]}

CTV National News is not the same as CTV Evening News, a title that appears in some national ratings reports and is sometimes erroneously associated with the Robertson newscast. The Evening News is in fact not a single newscast but the national aggregate of CTV O&Os' local 6:00 p.m. newscasts. (All networks have their O&Os' local newscasts aggregated for national ratings purposes.)

1 Anchors
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Anchors

The program was launched as CTV World News in 1961 from the studios of CJOH in Ottawa. It was originally presented by three anchors: Charles Lynch, Peter Stursberg and Peter Jennings.

The anchor team changed a number of times over the first few years, with Jennings as the sole constant. Other co-anchors included Baden Langton and Ab Douglas. Larry Henderson, the former host of the The National, was the show's international affairs analyst and weekend anchor for several years.

In the 1962-63 season, struggling to compete with CBC's more established The National, CTV moved its newscast to 10:30, scheduling a variety show, Network, for 10:55 p.m. The experiment only lasted a single season.

Jennings left for ABC News in 1964, and Harvey Kirck (Jennings' co-anchor up to that point) became the newscast's sole anchor.

In 1976, CTV National News returned to the co-anchor format, hiring Lloyd Robertson as co-anchor with Kirck; Robertson had previously served as anchor of The National on the CBC. When Kirck retired in 1984, Robertson became sole anchor of the program.

For a time in the late 1970s and again in the early 1990s Keith Morrison acted as weekend and substitute anchor and was considered Robertson's likely successor^[1] before a network shakeup resulted in his moving to NBC.

The opening titles to CTV National News with Lloyd Robertson from 1986.

Although there has been speculation since Morrison's departure about an heir presumptive to take over from Robertson when he eventually retires, at present no firm candidate has been identified. With the retirements of Tom Brokaw in 2004, Dan Rather in 2005, and KTVU's Dennis Richmond in 2008 as well as the deaths of ABC's Peter Jennings in 2005 and KTLA's Hal Fishman in 2007, Robertson is now the longest-serving, currently active news host on English-language North American television, network or local. On October 18, 2006, Robertson celebrated his 30th year as a CTV National News anchor. (Jim Lehrer has presented The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer since its inception in 1975, beating Robertson by almost a year, but has only presented as a sole-anchor of the programme since 1995.)