CTV flagship TV station in Toronto
CFTO-DT
(channel 9) is a
television station
in
Toronto, Ontario
, Canada, serving as the
flagship station
of the
CTV Television Network
. It is
owned and operated
by network parent
Bell Media
alongside
Barrie
-based
CTV 2
flagship
CKVR-DT
, channel 3 (although the two stations maintain separate operations). CFTO-DT's studios are located at
9 Channel Nine Court
in
Agincourt
, and its transmitter is located atop the
CN Tower
in
Downtown Toronto
. The station shares the Agincourt studio complex with CTV's headquarters, which includes studios for the network's news programming (
CTV National News
and the
CTV News Channel
), along with most of Bell Media's specialty channels.
History
[
edit
]
The station first signed on the air at 10 p.m. on
December 31
, 1960; its first official day of programming was on
January 1
, 1961. The inaugural program broadcast on CFTO was a
telethon
for the
Ontario Association for Community Living
, hosted by broadcaster Joel Aldred,
[1]
complete with a
fireworks
ceremony.
The station was founded by Baton Aldred Rogers Broadcasting, a
joint venture
between
Telegram Corporation
(owned by the
Ba
ssett
and
Ea
ton
families), Aldred-Rogers Broadcasting (owned by Joel Aldred and
Ted Rogers
), and
Foster Hewitt Broadcasting
, which owned radio station CKFH (1430 AM, now
CJCL
on 590 AM). The 'Baton' portion of the name was pronounced
(as in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
), rather than the
conducting tool
's traditional pronunciation.
The station's first children's show, shown on weekday afternoons, was
The Professor's Hideaway
, starring Stan Francis.
[2]
[3]
[4]
American television network
ABC
held a minority share in the partnership, which it sold to each of the partners shortly before CFTO-TV went on the air. Ted Rogers' uncle J. Elsworth Rogers was a minority (and originally primary) owner of Western Ontario Broadcasting, Ltd., owners of CKLW-TV (now
CBET
) in
Windsor, Ontario
(which was mostly owned by
RKO General
). The station's original studio and transmitter facilities were located at 1550 McCowan Road, later renamed 9 Channel Nine Court.
In March 1961, Aldred sold his interest in the station, and on October 1 of that year, CFTO became a charter affiliate of CTV, as well as the network's flagship station. In 1970, Ted Rogers sold his interest in CFTO and the Bassett-Eaton group sold their interest in
Rogers Cable
in an exchange of assets. On May 31, 1976, CFTO began transmitting its signal from the
CN Tower
, while its studios remained in
Agincourt
. CFTO began broadcasting in
stereo
in 1985. In 1991, the station joined with several other Ontario stations to form Ontario Network Television, which evolved into the
Baton Broadcast System
, a subsystem within the CTV network. In 1995, CFTO began operating rebroadcast stations at
Orillia
(on UHF channel 21) and
Bobcaygeon
(near
Peterborough
, on UHF channel 54).
When CTV's stations proposed to buy the network and run it as a
cooperative
in 1966, the
Board of Broadcast Governors
initially balked at the proposal. CFTO was by far the largest, richest and most profitable station (it was more than double the size of the next-largest station,
CFCF-TV
in
Montreal
). This led to fears that CFTO would dominate a station-owned network. The BBG was only appeased when the station owners promised that each owner would have an equal vote, regardless of how large it was. As it turned out, though, Baton gradually grew powerful enough that it was able to buy controlling interest in CTV in 1997, changing its name to CTV Inc. in 1998.
On January 27, 1998, the
Eaton family
sold its 41% interest in CTV. On that same day, the Baton Broadcast System merged into CTV. With rumours of an impending takeover,
Bell Canada
proposed to buy CTV Inc. for $2.3 billion; this was approved by the CTV board in March 2000. The deal still required approval from the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
(CRTC), but with the promise of the largest benefits package ever presented to the regulators, the deal was approved on December 7 that year. By February
2005
, the station stopped using its call letters in its on-air branding (opting to use the "CTV" name), a branding convention that became official on several CTV stations throughout the country in October 2005. BCE later sold most of its interest in CTV, with the parent company being renamed
CTVglobemedia
. BCE Inc. later reacquired 100% control of CTVglobemedia's assets for $1.3 billion in 2011, with the parent company being renamed once again to
Bell Media
.
Programming
[
edit
]
As CFTO serves as CTV's flagship station, its schedule is virtually identical to the CTV network schedule. A largely identical schedule is used on the other CTV stations in
Southern Ontario
,
CJOH
in
Ottawa
and
CKCO
in
Kitchener
, as CFTO acts as
master control
for these stations. Any discrepancies with other stations would generally be limited to local
infomercials
and religious programming on Sunday mornings.
Other station productions
[
edit
]
Under CTV's original cooperative structure, CFTO, through Baton's in-house production company Glen-Warren Productions, was one of the network's main contributors of Canadian programming, such as
The Littlest Hobo
,
Circus
and
The Uncle Bobby Show
. Indeed, the amount of programming originating at CFTO was often a source of tension with the network's other major-market affiliates. However, as with most local stations in
North America
, such locally produced non-news programming has become increasingly rare.
For much of its history, CFTO's Channel Nine Court studios have also served as the home for network-produced programs such as
CTV National News
,
Canada AM
and
W5
. The studios are now also used by a number of CTV's
specialty channels
, for productions such as the cable news channel
CTV News Channel
,
TSN
's
SportsCentre
, and
Discovery Channel
's
Daily Planet
.
Over the years, the studio complex has also been rented out for third-party productions, such as the studio scenes in the 1976 film
Network
.
[5]
The
Lotto 6/49
and
Lotto Super 7
(now
Lotto Max
) drawings were also held at the CFTO studios until 2008. Since 2010, CFTO and
CP24
have been the television broadcasters for the
Toronto Santa Claus Parade
.
News operation
[
edit
]
CFTO-DT presently broadcasts
15
+
1
⁄
2
hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with
2
+
1
⁄
2
hours each weekday and
1
+
1
⁄
2
hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). With the exception of its CP24 simulcasts, the station brands its newscasts as
CTV News Toronto
, in line with all of CTV's other owned-and-operated stations as well as the CTV 2 stations, using generic CTV News graphics. The station's flagship 6 p.m. newscast is the highest-rated local newscast in Canada.
[6]
Known beginning in the 1970s as
World Beat News
(for its early evening newscast),
Noon Beat News
(for its lunch hour newscast) and
Night Beat News
(for its late evening newscast), the station's newscasts were rebranded as
CFTO News
in early 1998, and as
CTV News
in 2005.
In December 2008, CP24, a 24-hour news channel which primarily focuses on Toronto, began airing a simulcast of
CTV News at Six
, displacing its simulcast of the 6 p.m. edition of
CityNews
. This change occurred because the long-standing association between
CITY-TV
(channel 57) and CP24 (which were previously both owned by
CHUM Limited
) abruptly came to an end after the CRTC announced the approval of their application by
Rogers Media
, owners of
Citytv
, to launch its own 24-hour local news channel which would be focusing on the
Greater Toronto Area
,
CityNews Channel
;
[7]
[8]
like CFTO, CP24 is operated by Bell Media, although the operations between the two remain otherwise separate. The station's late evening newscast,
CTV News at 11:30
, was later added to the CP24 schedule in May 2009. On May 12, 2009, CFTO began broadcasting its local newscasts in
high definition
; with the change, the station introduced a renovated studio.
Starting in July 2017, CFTO began simulcasting CP24's
Live at 5
and
Live at 5:30
as part of an expansion of local news programming across Bell Media stations. Unlike CP24, these newscasts are broadcast in full screen without any information sidebars.
Notable current on-air staff
[
edit
]
Notable former on-air staff
[
edit
]
Technical information
[
edit
]
Subchannels
[
edit
]
Analogue-to-digital conversion
[
edit
]
The station began providing a digital signal on satellite on November 17, 2003, and on January 30, 2004, CFTO was granted an over-the-air digital television signal, transmitting on UHF channel 40 at an
effective radiated power
of 17,400 watts. In mid-2005, CFTO upgraded its digital signal to transmit programming in high definition. CFTO shut down its analogue signal, over
VHF
channel 9, on August 31, 2011, the official date on which Canadian television stations in CRTC-designated mandatory
markets
transitioned from analogue to digital broadcasts
. The station's digital signal was relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 40 to its analogue-era VHF channel 9 for post-transition operations.
[10]
On April 29, 2019, CTV updated broadcast channels for stations in Toronto, Victoria, and Windsor. CFTO moved to VHF channel 8, but retained virtual channel 9.
[11]
Transmitters
[
edit
]
CFTO-TV-21 and a long list of CTV
rebroadcasters
nationwide were to shut down on or before August 31, 2009, as part of a political dispute with Canadian authorities on paid
fee-for-carriage
requirements for
cable television
operators.
[13]
A subsequent change in ownership assigned full control of CTVglobemedia to Bell Media; as of 2011, these transmitters continue to be licensed and remain in operation.
[14]
Just after midnight on June 23, 2019, the Orillia transmitter was converted to digital.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Joel Walkden Aldred
- ^
Raffi
(September 1998).
The Life of a Children's Troubadour: An Autobiography
. Homeland Press. p. 57.
ISBN
978-1-896943-44-2
.
- ^
"Here's looking at you, Kiddo"
Archived
August 13, 2017, at the
Wayback Machine
.
Showbiz
, Bill Brioux, November 26, 2004
- ^
"Happy Homes for Adoptable Children"
.
Broadcaster
, April 25, 1963, page 90
- ^
"Filming Locations for Network (1976), in New York and Toronto"
.
- ^
"ABOUT US"
. CTV News Toronto
. Retrieved
October 18,
2015
.
- ^
CP24 broadcasts Toronto's Number One Local 6pm Newscast
- ^
What Happened To CityNews On That Cable Channel?
Archived
December 14, 2008, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
RabbitEars TV Query for CFTO
- ^
Digital Television ? Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA)
Archived
November 20, 2013, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"Over-The-Air transmitter channel changes"
. CTV Television Network. Archived from
the original
on April 21, 2019
. Retrieved
April 21,
2019
.
- ^
ota test
- ^
CTV list of transmitters to be shut down
Archived
December 24, 2011, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"CRTC renews licences of most English-language television services: New licence terms to bolster funding for original Canadian programs"
. Crtc.gc.ca. Archived from
the original
on October 5, 2012
. Retrieved
December 24,
2015
.
External links
[
edit
]
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Toronto
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Outside GTA
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ATSC 3.0
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Cable
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Defunct stations
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Owned-and-operated stations
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Independently-owned affiliates
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Secondary carriers
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See also
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