As The New VI At the end of the 1990s,
CHUM Limited only owned terrestrial television stations in the province of
Ontario. Similarly,
Craig Media only had stations in provinces within the
Canadian Prairies. Both companies looked to expand their national presence, and both submitted a bid when the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) issued a call for applications for a new television station licence in Victoria. CHUM was awarded the licence in 2000, and signed on CIVI on October 4, 2001, as the first original station to be part of the NewNet
television system. The launch was a month behind the original schedule, and occurred amid a
massive TV realignment in the Vancouver/Victoria market; the various changes also meant that CIVI displaced
Bellingham, Washington's
KVOS-TV from its long-time home on channel 12 on many Vancouver-area cable systems. CIVI's studios, dubbed "Pandora's Box" for its location on Pandora Avenue, was designed by architect
Francis Rattenbury and had previously been the home of the Brackman-Ker Milling Company and other uses over the years. CHUM spent over $20 million restoring it, including outfitting the building with the latest in technology and bringing it up to seismic standards. Known on the air as "The New VI", the station started off with much pomp and circumstance, marking its launch with a street party around its Victoria studios and its
Nanaimo bureau. It boasted a large lineup of personalities, including former
British Columbia New Democratic Party cabinet minister
Moe Sihota. Original programming included
Island Underground (focusing on
Vancouver Island's youth culture),
The New Canoe (hosted by and produced for the area's
First Nations residents),
Environ-Mental (focusing on localized environmental issues), the
VI Parade (handling local arts and culture), and a localized version of ''
Speaker's Corner. Much of the launch schedule consisted of programming from other CHUM outlets (including CityLine, FashionTelevision and Ed the Sock's Night Party), some of which had previously aired across the border on KVOS (which CHUM had been syndicating programming to since the 1990s in the face of repeated failures to launch a station in the area), along with American imported and syndicated programming (including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Star Trek franchise), and a prime time movie on Sundays dubbed The Great MoVI'' (in the style of
Citytv's
Great Movies). The station struggled to compete against
CH owned-and-operated station
CHEK-TV (channel 6, now an
independent station), which had been the only local station on Vancouver Island for more than four decades. Gradually, personalities from the original roster were replaced by new faces, and some were let go without replacements. Not long after launch, CHUM purchased
CKVU in Vancouver and converted it into the Citytv station for the region, meaning CIVI became part of a
twinstick; as per CRTC regulations regarding twinsticks, CKVU was prohibited from airing more than 10% of the programming aired on CIVI, and newscasts were required to be separately managed.
As A-Channel Victoria Following CHUM's purchase of Craig Media's broadcasting assets in 2004, the station was rebranded as "A-Channel" on August 2, 2005, along with the rest of the NewNet system. (The station would have been part of the original
A-Channel system at its launch had Craig Media won the licence in 2000. On that same day it was also announced that the morning news program
A-Channel Morning would be discontinued, although this decision was supposedly unrelated to the takeover by CTVglobemedia (CIVI later restored a morning program to its schedule in the fall of 2007).
Rogers Communications announced a deal to buy A-Channel on April 9, 2007; however, given the conditions of approval for the sale of CHUM on June 8, 2007, Rogers acquired the
Citytv system instead, while CTV kept A-Channel. CTVglobemedia became the official owner of CIVI on June 22, 2007.
As A Vancouver Island The A-Channel system and Atlantic Canada's
ASN were rebranded as A on August 11, 2008, with CIVI becoming "A Vancouver Island". As a result, CIVI's newscasts were rebranded as
A News on that date, although the station's employees had been using that title for a couple of months prior to the relaunch; the station also began producing a morning newscast (under the title
A Morning) on September 8, 2008, but was later cancelled on March 4, 2009, due to economic issues. The program was later replaced with a simulcast of the morning show from sister radio station
CFAX (1070 AM).
CTV Two/CTV2 Vancouver Island Bell Media announced on May 30, 2011, its intention to rebrand the A television stations to CTV Two that fall. On August 29, 2011, CIVI became "CTV Two Vancouver Island", and its newscasts were rebranded as
CTV News. Bell listed the Broad and Pandora studio building for sale in June 2024, with plans to relocate CIVI and its sister radio stations to
Esquimalt. ==News operation==