Formation In 1958, Prime Minister
John Diefenbaker's government passed the
Broadcasting Act, which established the
Board of Broadcast Governors (BBG), a forerunner to the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), as the governing body of Canadian broadcasting, effectively ending the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) dual role as regulator and broadcaster. The new board's first act was to take applications for "second" television stations in
Halifax,
Montreal (in both English and
French),
Ottawa,
Toronto,
Winnipeg,
Calgary,
Edmonton, and
Vancouver in response to an outcry for an alternative to
the CBC's television service. Calgary and Edmonton were served by privately owned CBC
affiliates; the other six markets by CBC
owned-and-operated stations (O&Os). In order of their first sign-on, the newly-licensed stations were: •
CFCN-TV Calgary (September 9, 1960) •
CHAN-TV Vancouver (October 31, 1960) •
CJAY-TV Winnipeg (November 12, 1960) •
CFTO-TV Toronto (December 31, 1960) •
CJCH-TV Halifax (January 1, 1961) •
CFCF-TV Montreal (English; January 20, 1961) •
CFTM-TV Montreal (French; February 19, 1961) •
CJOH-TV Ottawa (March 12, 1961) •
CBXT Edmonton (October 1, 1961) The first eight stations were privately owned; the Edmonton station was a CBC O&O, thus
CFRN-TV, the existing local station which had launched in 1954, would lose its CBC affiliation once CBXT signed on. Even before his station was licensed,
John W. H. Bassett, the chief executive of the ultimately successful Toronto applicant
Baton Aldred Rogers Broadcasting, had expressed interest in participating in the creation of a second television network, "of which we see the Toronto station as anchor". Indeed, Baton had already begun quietly contacting the successful applicants in other cities to gauge their interest in forming a cooperative group to share Canadian programming among the stations. However, the ITO faced opposition from
Spence Caldwell, a former CBC executive and one of the unsuccessful applicants for the Toronto licence, who had first approached the BBG in April 1960 to pitch a second-station network proposal of his own. Under his plan, at least 51% of the shares of the network would be owned by various prominent
Bay Street investors who had previously backed his Toronto station bid; only 49% would be reserved for the network's affiliates to purchase, if they wished. The BBG – and particularly its chair Andrew Stewart (who at the time also served as the president of the
University of Alberta) – was not in favour of a station-owned network, fearing that any such network would be dominated by Toronto's CFTO. Although it did not immediately approve Caldwell's proposal, it soon set several conditions on such a network that effectively made Caldwell's group the only feasible applicant. That fall, the Caldwell group (now named the
Canadian Television Network, or CTN) and the ITO faced off in a series of meetings with the BBG. The ITO decided not to follow through with a formal network application, but the stations – particularly Baton, which said it had no interest in participating in CTN and believed it could still be successful without one – continued to indicate various concerns with the viability of Caldwell's proposal. Ultimately, the BBG granted a licence to CTN, conditional on securing the affiliation of six of the eight ITO stations. Baton's original plan was to operate a temporary network to distribute the games incorporating CFTO, other independent stations, and CBC affiliates in smaller markets (assuming the public network released its affiliates to carry the game). Although the plan was neither officially rejected or approved, various uncertainties eventually led John Bassett to decide to sign an affiliation agreement with CTN instead to ensure the games would air. Most of the other second stations followed suit, with the exception of CHAN in Vancouver, which agreed to carry several network programs but never officially signed on as an affiliate for the duration of the Caldwell era, yet nonetheless would later claim to have been a "charter member" of the network.
Early years The network finally launched as the CTV Television Network on October 1, 1961. The CBC had objected to the network's initial name, apparently claiming it had exclusive rights to the term "Canadian", and therefore the letters "CTV" have no official expanded meaning. CTV's initial 1961–1962 season began with the following programs, five of which were Canadian productions: In many cases, CTV found itself competing with its own stations for the rights to programming.
Reorganization and expansion Caldwell's departure in 1965 did little to alleviate the situation, and CTV soon found itself on the verge of bankruptcy. In 1966, the network's affiliates (which by this time included
CJON-TV in
St. John's,
CKCO-TV in
Kitchener,
CHAB-TV/CHRE-TV in
Moose Jaw/
Regina, and the network's first and only U.S. affiliate,
WNYP-TV in
Jamestown, New York) sought permission to buy the network and run it as a cooperative. The BBG was initially skeptical of the proposal. Since CFTO was by far the largest and richest station (it was more than double the size of the next-largest station, Montreal's CFCF-TV), the BBG feared that CFTO would dominate CTV if the stations were allowed to buy the network. To alleviate these concerns, the affiliates promised that each station owner would have one vote regardless of its audience share. The board readily approved the proposal, and by the start of the 1966–67 season, the stations owned their network. The network also began broadcasting in
colour on September 1, 1966. (Robertson served as the network's main anchorman until 2011). Its weekly newsmagazine series,
W5, has been a fixture on the network since 1966, predating the similar American program
60 Minutes by two years. In the 1970s, CTV often bought rights to pop and rock songs to serve as theme music for its programming, rather than commissioning original themes. Most notably,
W5 used an instrumental portion of
Supertramp's "
Fool's Overture",
Canada AM used an instrumental version of
The Moody Blues' "Ride My See-Saw", the game show
Definition used
Quincy Jones' "
Soul Bossa Nova" and the
CTV Movie used the
Keith Mansfield instrumental "Statement" from the
KPM Musichouse library. For most of its first four decades, CTV did not have what could be considered a main schedule outside of news programming. The differences were enough that Ottawa's CJOH used a rebroadcaster in
Cornwall to feed cable systems in Montreal from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s despite the presence of CFCF; the CJOH rebroadcaster reaches the western portion of the Montreal area.
Conflict and consolidation CTV's cooperative structure regularly led to conflicts between the network's owner-affiliates. In particular, the owners of CFCF, CJOH, and especially CHAN felt that
Baton Broadcasting, owners of
flagship CFTO in Toronto, dominated production of network programming. In the mid-1980s, Baton began a drive to take over CTV by buying as many affiliates as possible. Having already bought
CFQC-TV in
Saskatoon in 1971, Baton purchased additional stations in Saskatchewan – including CTV affiliates CKCK-TV Regina,
CICC-TV Yorkton, and
CIPA-TV Prince Albert – in 1986. Baton then purchased CJOH in 1988, followed by the
MCTV and
Huron Broadcasting stations, which included four CTV affiliates in
Northern Ontario, in 1990. One caveat, however, was the "one owner, one vote" provision of the cooperative's bylaws. Any acquisition of one station by an existing station owner triggered an automatic redistribution of the acquired station's shares among the other owners. As a result, even though it owned 11 of CTV's 24 affiliates, Baton still had only had one vote out of eight. Around the same time, several CTV owner-affiliates were expanding their holdings outside of the network. CHAN owner
Western International Communications purchased
Selkirk Communications and Allarcom, which together owned several independent stations in Alberta and Ontario.
CHUM Limited, owner of the CTV-affiliated
ATV system serving the Maritimes, already owned independent station
CITY-TV in Toronto, and by this point had begun launching national cable channels like
MuchMusic. Even Baton added some stations outside of CTV, with the purchase or launch of three independent stations in southwestern Ontario in 1992–93. It also began competing with the network for some program acquisitions in 1992, and in 1994 launched the
Baton Broadcast System (BBS) as a parallel programming brand for both its CTV affiliates and independent stations. After several years of contentious negotiations between the eight remaining owner-affiliates, by late 1992 they had reached an agreement to recapitalize the network, and provide a path for a single company to eventually take control. The restructuring took effect in January 1993, and CTV converted from a cooperative to a corporation. Seven of the owner-affiliates invested equally, yielding a 14.3% stake in the network for each; however, Newfoundland Broadcasting, owner of CJON, decided not to invest further and effectively relinquished its vote, reducing the number of active voting members to seven. As part of the restructuring, the stations also agreed to reduce the number of hours of network programming, allowing Baton and WIC to program more of their stations' schedules with their own acquisitions. In 1996, Baton acquired CFCN from
Rogers Communications. Significantly, Baton also acquired Rogers' CTV vote. It also started a joint venture with
Electrohome, owner of CFRN and CKCO. As part of the deal, Baton was allowed to vote Electrohome's shares in addition to its own. The following year, Baton acquired Electrohome's share of the joint venture, and separately acquired ATV from CHUM. This gave Baton a 57.2% controlling interest in the network, triggering a
put option allowing the remaining affiliates, WIC (which by this time owned both CHAN and CFCF) and
Moffat (owner of CKY), to sell their CTV shares to Baton without selling their stations, which they did. Baton was now full owner of the CTV network and immediately began plastering the CTV brand across its stations, even on non-network programming, and dropped its secondary BBS brand. The company changed its name to CTV Inc. in 1998, and eventually acquired two of the final three large-market stations, CKY and CFCF (it replaced the third, CHAN, as discussed below). CTV has attracted some controversy in the past because of cutbacks to its small-market stations. In the late 1990s, cuts were made to the news staff and productions at CTV's two small-market Saskatchewan stations,
CICC-TV in
Yorkton and
CIPA-TV in
Prince Albert. These stations currently simulcast supper-hour and late-night news from CKCK and CFQC respectively, placing local inserts into the newscasts. Similarly, the four
Maritime stations, known collectively as
CTV Atlantic (then known as ATV), and the four
Northern Ontario stations, known collectively as
CTV Northern Ontario (then known as MCTV), each had their local news production cut back in the early 2000s to one single centrally produced newscast for each region, with only brief inserts for news of strictly local interest. This was a controversial move in all of the affected communities, especially in Northern Ontario where MCTV's newscasts were the only locally oriented news programs in those markets.
Bell Canada era In 2000, typical of the
ownership consolidation trend at the time,
BCE Inc. acquired CTV,
Netstar Communications, and
The Globe and Mail newspaper, combining them into a media division known as Bell Globemedia (BGM). BGM also subsequently acquired a minority share in the French-language network
TQS, which broadcasts in
Quebec. CTV has legally been a "television service" in the eyes of the CRTC since 2000, when it allowed its network licence to expire. CBC,
Radio-Canada,
TVA and
Aboriginal Peoples Television Network are the only official television networks in Canada (CTV was issued a separate network licence in 2001 to continue to provide programming to CHFD Thunder Bay, CJBN Kenora, and CITL Lloydminster). CTV lost significant coverage in
British Columbia and
Newfoundland and Labrador at the beginning of the 21st century, starting with a
major television realignment in Vancouver. In 2000,
Canwest Global bought the television stations of
Western International Communications, which owned long-standing CTV affiliates CHAN in Vancouver and
CHEK-TV in
Victoria. A year later, after its CTV contract ran out, Canwest made CHAN the
Global owned-and-operated station for British Columbia, taking advantage of CHAN's massive network of repeaters that cover 97% of the province. CTV shifted its programming to
CIVT-TV, an
independent station it already owned. Unlike CHAN, CIVT has only one transmitter covering the metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Victoria, and has to rely on cable and satellite to reach the rest of the province. CIVT is either carried on a higher channel number or unavailable altogether in the
Mountain Time Zone portion of British Columbia, where CTV relies on
CFCN-DT or
CFRN-DT as its main carriers. Meanwhile, in 2002,
CJON-TV (known as "NTV") in
St. John's dropped its 38-year CTV affiliation after the network attempted to alter its affiliation agreement in a way that Newfoundland Broadcasting found unfair. Since joining CTV, CJON had aired the base network schedule essentially for free since CTV paid it for the airtime. The station then bought additional CTV programming and sold all advertising. However, CTV tried to make CJON pay for the base schedule as well, with no possibility of airtime payments. It also increased the fees for additional CTV programming beyond what CJON claimed it could pay. Newfoundland Broadcasting also did not want to continue to carry CTV's national advertising during these programs. At the start of the 2002–03 season, CJON became an independent station and dropped most CTV programming except for national newscasts; in exchange, it provides news coverage of Newfoundland and Labrador events to CTV. In recent years, all of CTV's non-news programming has disappeared from the station, and since then virtually all primetime programs aired on that station are from rival Global. CTV does not currently have a
de facto affiliate in that province, with most Newfoundlanders having to rely on cable and satellite (usually from CTV Atlantic) for its programming. In September 2005, CTV announced an agreement with
MTV Networks that saw the launch of
MTV Canada. In July 2006, CTV parent Bell Globemedia announced plans to acquire
CHUM Limited, itself a former partner in CTV (via ATV), and at that point one of Canada's largest broadcasters. While CTVglobemedia kept CHUM's radio stations along with the
A-Channel television stations and most of CHUM's specialty channels, the
Citytv stations were sold off to Rogers as required by the conditions the CRTC placed upon CTV when approving the CHUM purchase. Bell Globemedia was renamed CTVglobemedia on January 1, 2007. In March 2009, CTV became the first Canadian television network to offer its programming online in
high definition. CTV affiliate
CHFD in
Thunder Bay, Ontario left the network on February 12, 2010, after being unable to reach an agreement on new affiliation terms; CHFD instead became a full-time Global affiliate. CFTO was offered as part of the basic package to Thunder Bay cable subscribers for the duration of the
2010 Winter Olympics; the station had otherwise been available only on the digital cable timeshifting package, leaving CTV without a presence on basic cable in the market. On September 10, 2010, BCE Inc. announced it would purchase the remaining shares of CTVglobemedia for $1.3 billion (CAD). On April 1, 2011, CTVglobemedia was officially renamed Bell Media. On December 1, 2011,
CJBN-TV in
Kenora, Ontario dropped all CTV programming and became a full Global station, adopting a schedule similar to nearby Global station
CKND-DT in Winnipeg. The move left
CITL-DT in
Lloydminster as the sole remaining CTV affiliate not owned by the network until 2014. It was announced in June 2014, that
CKPR-DT in Thunder Bay, Ontario would change affiliations from
CBC to CTV on September 1, 2014, resulting in Thunder Bay having a CTV affiliate again. On May 20, 2015,
Corus Entertainment announced an agreement with Bell Media to switch its three CBC affiliates in Ontario to CTV:
CHEX-DT Peterborough,
CHEX-TV-2 Oshawa, and
CKWS-DT Kingston. The affiliation switch went into effect on August 31, 2015. The stations would later become owned-and-operated Global affiliates on August 27, 2018, following the end of CTV's program supply agreements with the stations and Corus' acquisition of Global's former parent company
Shaw Media in 2016. ==Programming==