The program was launched as
CTV World News on September 24th 1962 as a fifteen-minute program, scheduled at 10:30pm, from the studios of
CJOH in
Ottawa. It was presented by two anchors:
Baden Langton and
Ab Douglas.
Peter Jennings became a co-anchor in 1963 and remained with the newscast until 1964, when he joined
ABC News, where he would become a long-time foreign correspondent and news anchor.
Larry Henderson, the former host of
The National was CTV's international affairs analyst and weekend anchor for several years. In the 1962–63 season, struggling to compete with
CBC's more established
CBC National News, CTV scheduled its newscast for 10:30, scheduling a
variety show,
Network, for 10:45 p.m. The experiment lasted one season. In 1963, the program moved to 11 p.m. Langton joined ABC News in the United States in 1964, first with
ABC Radio in New York and then in
Washington, DC as
White House correspondent for ABC News on both radio and television. Jennings soon followed him, joining ABC television's
ABC Evening Report later that year, and becoming anchor in 1965.
Harvey Kirck, Jennings' co-anchor since Langton's departure, became the newscast's sole anchor. The program expanded to 20 minutes in 1966, beating out a similar expansion move by the CBC. Kirck and some crewmembers moved from Ottawa to Toronto, though
Ab Douglas continued to contribute from Ottawa. The newscast began airing in colour, though colour film of Canadian news events was rare at the time because of the lead time needed to convert it. In 1976,
CTV National News scored a major coup by hiring Lloyd Robertson, anchor of CBC's
The National, as co-anchor with Kirck. When Kirck retired in 1984, Robertson became sole weekday anchor of the program, a position he held until 2011.
CTV National News remained less than a half-hour until 1988, when it was expanded from 21 minutes to 30 and began satellite delivery to Western Canada. For a time in the late 1970s and again in the early 1990s,
Keith Morrison acted as weekend and substitute anchor and was considered Robertson's likely successor before a network shakeup resulted in his moving to
NBC News. Sandie Rinaldo served as weekend anchor from 1985 until her 2023 promotion to host the weeknight early edition, excluding a brief period from 1990 to 1991. With a total of 40 years on two networks, Robertson was the second-longest tenured news anchor on English-language North American television (network or local), behind
Dave Ward, who was the top anchorman at
KTRK-TV in
Houston, Texas, from 1967 to 2017. He was the longest-tenured network news anchor in North America, outlasting several long-standing anchors in the United States. On October 18, 2006, Robertson celebrated his 30th year as a CTV National News anchor. (
Jim Lehrer had presented
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer since its inception in 1975, beating Robertson by almost a year, but he only presented as a sole anchor of the programme from 1995 until 2011.) On July 8, 2010, Robertson announced that he would retire on September 1, 2011—his 35th anniversary at CTV. The following day, CTV announced Lisa LaFlamme, the network's chief international correspondent and Robertson's backup anchor since 2003, had been named as Robertson's successor. LaFlamme's departure from the newscast led to allegations that she was fired for having let her hair go grey during the
COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, CTV News head Michael Melling faced scrutiny when it was revealed that he had asked in internal memos for an explanation of who had permitted LaFlamme to make that decision, and had sparred with LaFlamme over the costs involved in covering both the
Russian invasion of Ukraine and the
Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. CTV denied the allegations that LaFlamme's age or hair colour had entered into the decision, and announced a workplace review.
Anchors •
Baden Langton (1962–1964) (co-anchor) •
Ab Douglas (1962–1964) (co-anchor) •
Peter Jennings (1963–1964) (co-anchor) •
Harvey Kirck (1963–1984, chief anchor from 1964 to 1976, co-anchor 1963 to 1964 and 1976 to 1984) •
Lloyd Robertson (1976–2011, co-anchor from 1976 to 1984, chief anchor from 1984 onward) •
Sandie Rinaldo (1985–1989, 1991–2023, weekends; 2023–present, early evening edition) • Heather Butts (2023–present, Friday and weekends) •
Keith Morrison (1992–1995) (fill-in) •
Lisa LaFlamme (2011–2022) •
Omar Sachedina (2022–present) (Monday-Thursday) ImageSize = width:800 height:225 PlotArea = left:110 bottom:55 top:10 right:10 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:1961 till:2023 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Colors = id:1 value:red legend:Chief_Anchor id:2 value:orange legend:Co-anchor id:3 value:blue legend:Weekend_Anchor Legend = orientation:horizontal position:bottom ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:1961 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:5 start:1961 BarData = bar:Langton text:"
Baden Langton" bar:Douglas text:"
Ab Douglas" bar:Jennings text:"
Peter Jennings" bar:Kirck text:"
Harvey Kirck" bar:Robertson text:"
Lloyd Robertson" bar:Rinaldo text:"
Sandie Rinaldo" bar:Morrison text:"
Keith Morrison" bar:LaFlamme text:"
Lisa LaFlamme" bar:Sachedina text:"
Omar Sachedina" PlotData = width:10 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4) bar:Langton from:1962 till:1964 color:2 bar:Douglas from:1962 till:1964 color:2 bar:Jennings from:1963 till:1964 color:2 bar:Kirck from:1963 till:1964 color:2 bar:Kirck from:1964 till:1976 color:1 bar:Kirck from:1976 till:1984 color:2 bar:Robertson from:1976 till:1984 color:2 bar:Robertson from:1984 till:2011 color:1 bar:Rinaldo from:1985 till:1990 color:3 bar:Rinaldo from:1991 till:end color:3 bar:Morrison from:1990 till:1991 color:3 bar:LaFlamme from:2011 till:2022 color:1 bar:Sachedina from:2022 till:end color:1 ==See also==