| Type | Broadcast television system |
|---|---|
| Country | Canada |
| Availability | Semi-national (urban Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan (effective January 2, 2012), much of B.C. and Manitoba); parts of the northern U.S. via digital cable |
| Slogan | Everywhere! |
| Owner | Rogers Broadcasting Ltd. |
| Key people | Leslie Sole - CEO of Rogers Media Television |
| Launch date | September 28, 1972 (independent) July 22, 2002 (launch of the Citytv system) |
| Official website | citytv.com |
Citytv is a Canadian English language television system owned and operated by Rogers Communications under its Rogers Broadcasting Ltd. division. The system currently consists of five owned and operated television stations located in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, as well as (as of January 2012) four independently-owned affiliates serving Saskatchewan as well as smaller cities in Alberta and British Columbia. It is generally considered part of the second tier of Canadian English-language broadcast television services, alongside CTV Two. The Citytv brand has also been licensed to television stations outside of Canada.
Citytv stations originally had an intensely-local format based on newscasts aimed at younger viewers, nightly movies, and music and cultural programming. Moses Znaimer, who developed the original format, once described the system's philosophy by saying, "It's not the show, it's the flow". Since the late 2000s, and particularly since its acquisition by Rogers, Citytv has moved towards a series-based primetime schedule much like its competitors, albeit one still focused on younger demographics.
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The original Citytv station, granted callsign CITY-TV by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), was founded in Toronto in 1972 and began broadcasting for the first time on September 28 under the ownership of Channel Seventy-Nine Ltd; CHUM Limited acquired the station in 1981. Broadcasting on UHF channel 79 through its first decade, the station moved to channel 57 in 1983, until moving to UHF 44 with the digital switchover. In 1987, the station moved its headquarters from the former Electric Circus night club at 99 Queen Street East to 299 Queen Street West, formerly known as the Ryerson Press Building (then known as the CHUM-City Building); one of the most recognizable landmarks in the city. On September 8, 2009, Citytv moved to its current location at Yonge-Dundas Square at 33 Dundas Street East.[1]
Citytv gained a second station in Vancouver when CHUM bought CKVU from Canwest Global in 2001. The station became Citytv Vancouver on July 22, 2002. Prior to CHUM's acquisition of CKVU, some Citytv programming was syndicated to KVOS in nearby Bellingham, Washington.
In 2004, CHUM bought Craig Media Inc., parent of the A-Channel system in Manitoba and Alberta. The Craig-owned A-Channel stations were relaunched as Citytv on August 2, 2005; the same date when CHUM's NewNet (The New VR, The New WI, the New PL, etc) stations were rebranded under the A-Channel banner.
On July 12, 2006, Citytv parent CHUM Limited announced plans to sell its broadcasting assets to CTV parent CTVglobemedia. CTVgm initially intended to retain CHUM's Citytv system while divesting CHUM's A-Channel stations and Access Alberta in order for the CRTC to approve the acquisition.[2]
On the same day that the takeover was announced, Citytv canceled its supper hour, late night, and weekend newscasts at its local Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg stations, laying off hundreds of news department staff.
In October 2006, Citytv launched a daily national newscast, CityNews International. It is produced in Toronto for broadcast on the western Canadian stations, as well as on CHUM's Toronto news channel CP24. The Edmonton and Calgary stations also began broadcasting a daily 30-minute magazine show, Your City, instead of a full-fledged newscast. The Vancouver news operation, which had operated for 30 years under various owners and station identities, was not maintained aside from BT.
In the same month, Citytv Toronto began broadcasting local news in high-definition, becoming the first television station in Canada to do so.
On June 8, 2007, the CRTC approved the CTV takeover of CHUM. However, the CRTC made the deal conditional on CTV divesting itself of Citytv, because they already have CTV O&O stations serving the very same cities (CFTO-TV Toronto, CIVT-TV Vancouver, CFCN-TV Calgary, CFRN-TV Edmonton, and CKY-TV Winnipeg) as it would have exceeded the CRTC's concentration of media ownership limits. As a result, CTV announced on June 11, 2007, that it would retain the A-Channel stations, and sell off the Citytv stations to Rogers Communications for $375 million.[3][4] The transaction was approved by the CRTC on September 28 and was completed on October 31, 2007.
On December 6, 2010, CityNews Tonight Toronto anchor/Citytv continuity voice-over, Mark Dailey passed away after a long battle with cancer.[5]
Citytv is well known for its unconventional approach to news and local programming. There is no news desk (anchors read the news standing up, or on stools), and cameras are sometimes hand-held. Citytv also pioneered the concept of videojournalism, where reporters often carry their own cameras and report and videotape their own stories. Citytv calls its videojournalists "videographers", but unlike many American television markets that try to conceal the fact that reporters are so-called "one-man bands", Citytv embraced the use of video journalism by highlighting the use of technology; Citytv videographers often carry a second home video camera to record images of them videotaping on the scene. The low-grade video is then incorporated into the final story to show viewers how the story was recorded.
At its peak, Citytv Toronto produced more local programs than any other television station in Canada, such as Speakers' Corner, CityLine and was the original home of FashionTelevision, SexTV, and MediaTelevision. Citytv also airs The Quon Dynasty, a reality restaurant show based in Edmonton, AB. Many of these series were not strictly focused on Toronto – FT, for instance, consists largely of foreign runway footage – and are easily syndicated to other CHUM outlets. The latter three shows are owned by CTVglobemedia as a result of its takeover of CHUM and subsequent divesting of the Citytv stations.
The station also attracted attention and controversy by airing Baby Blue Movies, or soft-core pornography, on Friday nights after midnight. Although this programming strategy was discontinued in the 1980s, it was reinstated on CITY and CKVU for short time in the early 2000s.
This, along with the 'hide away' place on the UHF dial formed the basis of fictional station "CIVIC TV" (Channel 83 Cable 12) in David Cronenberg's Videodrome, which is set in Toronto.
As well, CITY was one of the first television stations in Canada to implement a diversity policy in hiring its on-air staff, actively seeking out people of colour, people with disabilities, and other minority groups to work as on-air journalists. Znaimer originally described the policy as wanting the station to "look like Toronto".
Beginning in 1983, CITY began to produce a New Year's Eve special live from Nathan Phillips Square in Downtown Toronto. Currently known as the Citytv New Year's Eve Bash, the yearly concert special will expand to include a second event in Calgary, Alberta for its 2012 edition.
In 2008, Citytv dropped its Great Movies block and replaced it with either reruns, reality shows or infomercials.
Citytv Toronto's CityNews, formerly known as CityPulse, had developed a large following, but ratings have since been steadily declining. Other stations around the world have tried to imitate its format to varying degrees of success. However, Citytv itself was unsuccessful in expanding its audience to other markets, as evidenced by the recent cancellation of the other stations' traditional newscasts.
Due to the ongoing structural problems facing the conventional television sector in Canada and the global economic crisis, Rogers Media announced cost-cutting measures at the Citytv stations on January 19, 2010, which included massive layoffs and the cancellation of the following newscasts:
Citytv will continue to produce Breakfast Television and CityLine for all markets and CityNews at Six and CityNews Tonight in Toronto only excluding weekends. In total, 60 Citytv employees (including long-time Toronto news anchor Anne Mroczkowski) have been laid off across Canada.[6][7][8]
Sports broadcasts on the Citytv stations have been sparse over the years. The predominant sports property in recent years has been National Football League football, but even this has been quite sporadic.
Craig Media (including the now-Citytv stations in Winnipeg and Alberta) owned the rights to Monday Night Football in the early 2000s, and these rights moved to Citytv for MNF's final season on ABC in 2005, before being moved again to TSN in 2006.
With the sale to Rogers, CKVU carried 4:00 p.m. ET games during the 2007 season (as did OMNI.2 in Toronto), under sublicence from Rogers Sportsnet. For the 2008 season, all Citytv stations now carry 4:00 games. Sportsnet carries a different game than the game broadcast by Citytv. CITY also airs selected Buffalo Bills preseason games (including those held at the Rogers Centre).
The Citytv stations in Alberta (while still branded "A-Channel") carried some regional NHL games during their first few years. The most recent hockey broadcast was on October 30, 2008, when CKAL broadcast a Calgary Flames hockey game due to a scheduling conflict on Rogers Sportsnet West involving the 2008 World Series.
Citytv Toronto had also broadcast some regular-season basketball games during the inaugural season of the Toronto Raptors. On March 2, 2008, Citytv Toronto aired its first known baseball game, a Toronto Blue Jays spring training game, against the Cincinnati Reds. Citytv and the Toronto Blue Jays are both owned by Rogers.
In 2003, CHUM Limited launched an HD simulcast of its Toronto station CITY-TV. In October 2006, Citytv installed a new control room, becoming one of the first fully HD broadcasters in Canada. On March 2, 2010 CKVU-TV in Vancouver launched its HD simulcast. CKEM-DT in Edmonton began testing on May 26, 2010 and began regular HD broadcasting on June 29, 2010. CITY-DT-3 in Ottawa began testing on June 12, 2010 and regular broadcasting on June 18, 2010. CKAL-DT began testing on August 31, 2010.
Citytv HD is available nationally via satellite and on digital cable as well as for free via DTT using a regular TV antenna and a digital tuner (included in most new TVs) on the following channels:
Shortly after Rogers' takeover of the Citytv stations was complete, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission published an application under which Rogers would have acquired 20% of CP24, which was sold to CTVglobemedia as part of its $1.4 billion takeover offer of CHUM Limited in 2007.[9] It is not clear from the available evidence whether this was directly tied to the sale of CHUM as opposed to any pre-existing rights Rogers may have had. In any event, the application was withdrawn prior to the scheduled hearing.[10]
In July 2008, Rogers filed a new application with the CRTC to launch a separate 24-hour news station to be known as "CityNews Toronto". That application was approved by the CRTC on December 10 of that year. The new channel was initially slated to hit the airwaves in late 2009, however it was delayed due to the reconstruction and economic terms.[11]
On May 30, 2011 Rogers announced plans to launch CityNews Channel in the fall of that year, with plans to incorporate elements of other Rogers-owned news properties including 680 News and Maclean's, in addition to Citytv Toronto.[12] The channel officially launched on October 3, 2011 on Rogers Cable systems in the Toronto and Ottawa markets.
Individual stations are normally branded on-air as "Citytv"; the location may be added if disambiguation is necessary.
The Jim Pattison Group announced in July 2009 that its three television stations in western Canada, formerly affiliated with E!, would broadcast the entire Citytv program lineup starting on September 1, 2009.[13] As these stations are not located in major urban centres, they do not carry Citytv branding; instead, they opted to keep the same names and logos used as affiliates of the E! system. Moreover, they do not produce their own versions of Breakfast Television nor CityNews like the Citytv O&Os do.
On December 20, 2011, Bluepoint Investment Corporation announced an affiliation agreement with Rogers Communications to air Citytv programming on the Saskatchewan Communications Network from 3pm-6am CST daily, as of January 2, 2012. This block of programming will follow the national program grid of Citytv and be known on-air as Citytv on SCN.[14]
Prior to 1997, CHUM owned two television outlets in Atlantic Canada: the ATV system of CTV affiliates, and cable-only channel ASN. Many Citytv programs were aired on either ATV or ASN during this period. Both ATV and ASN were acquired by Baton Broadcasting (now CTVglobemedia) in 1997; ASN continued to air much of the Citytv schedule until it became part of the A television system in 2008.
In the past, local rights to individual Citytv programs were sold to stations outside of the Toronto station's coverage area. In Vancouver, programs were split between KVOS in Bellingham, Washington, which is close to Vancouver, and CTV-owned CIVT, during the 1990s and early 2000s when Citytv did not have a station in Vancouver. The WIC stations in Alberta (including CITV and CICT) bought provincial rights to some Citytv programs prior to the launch of CKAL and CKEM in 1997.
The Citytv brand has been licensed to local television stations in Bogotá, Colombia (Citytv Bogotá) and Barcelona, Spain (Citytv Barcelona). The latter station's licence agreement expired in 2006, and the station was renamed TD8.
Additionally, Toronto's CITY-TV is broadcast on a number of cable TV systems in the Caribbean. In Barbados, Citytv is on channel 507 of the terrestrial subscription service known as Multi-Choice TV.
In March 2006, CHUM signed an agreement with WRUA channel 34 in Fajardo, Puerto Rico to establish a Citytv franchise on that channel—a first in the United States.[15] Rogers Media discontinued the licensing for WRUA, and the station now serves as a translator for WECN in Naranjito.
List includes presenters from all Citytv stations and affiliates.
Past presentersToronto
Elsewhere
See alsoReferences
External links
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