Global National

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Global National
The 2006 opening of Global National
Format	News
Starring	Kevin Newman Tara Nelson
Country of origin	Canada
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	N/A
Production
Running time	30 mins.
Broadcast
Original channel	Global
Original run	2001 – present
External links
Official website

Global National is the national newscast of Global Television Network in Canada.

The program's weekday anchor is Kevin Newman, whose name was added to the program's title beginning in its second season. As of February 2008, Newman anchors from a newly-built digital newsroom and studio facility in Ottawa. However, the newscast's main editorial and production staff remain at Global's Vancouver station, CHAN-TV, from which the Ottawa studio is controlled remotely. Weekend anchor Tara Nelson, who also serves as Newman's primary substitute, continues to anchor from Vancouver.

Global National aired for the first time on September 3, 2001. Prior to its launch, Global aired Canada Tonight (which it had inherited from the WIC group of stations) for a few months; that program, in turn, had replaced regional newscasts such as First National. Weekend broadcasts began on February 26, 2005.

Regular substitute anchors have included Robin Stickley (Global BC), Leslie Roberts (Global Ontario), Jill Krop (Global BC), Deborra Hope (Global BC), Chris Gailus (Global BC), and former Global BC anchors Suzette Myers and Sophie Lui (CHEK Victoria).

The program, covering national and international news, is aired live at 5:30 p.m. on Global stations in the Eastern Time Zone and 6:30 p.m. in the Atlantic Time Zone. This version of the show is then broadcast via satellite tape delay in time zones to the west (at 5:30 local time), with updates if news events warrant. The timeslot allows it to become a lead-in to local news in most of the country. While strong in Western Canada from day one – particularly in B.C., where the Global station CHAN dominates local news ratings – the timeslot change allowed it to improve its ratings significantly in Ontario. Its current lead-in in that province, The Young and the Restless, had previously given a strong ratings bump to CIII's local newscast.

Until February 2006, Global National aired in different time slots across the country: 5:30 in British Columbia, 6:00 in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, 6:30 in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, and 11:15 in the Maritime Provinces.

Despite having fewer reporters and being a latecomer to national news in Canada, Global National has come to rival its competitors at CTV National News and CBC's The National in both awards and ratings. During most weeks since the timeslot change in February, Global National has ranked as Canada's most-watched national newscast according to the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement. This is with the caveat that only initial airings from Monday to Friday are compared; CTV still leads on a seven-day basis [1].

[edit] Unique offerings

Global National is the first mainstream Canadian newscast to be released as a podcast. In 2006 the download was expanded to include video for playback on a video iPod.

Global National often uses VoxPolls using text messaging to conduct informal polls, the results are shown on the newscast and in the National Post.