CIVT-TV
Encyclopedia
CIVT-DT is a television station
in Vancouver
, British Columbia
, Canada
. Owned by Bell Media, it is part of the CTV Television Network
. It broadcasts on UHF channel 32, and is seen on cable channel 9 in most areas.
, the former site of the Vancouver Public Library
's central branch, at the intersection of Robson Street
and Burrard Street
in Downtown Vancouver. The BC operations of the CTV network itself, including the CTV News
Vancouver bureau, are also located at the same facility. The station broadcasts a terrestrial
signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter on Mount Seymour
; it was the only CTV network station to broadcast its primary signal on UHF prior to the digital transition
.
CIVT is the only full-fledged CTV station in British Columbia, as well as in the Pacific Standard Time zone. However, the station only has one terrestrial transmitter, and that UHF signal only reaches Vancouver, Victoria
, and neighbouring Whatcom County, Washington
. Accordingly, the station relies exclusively on cable
and satellite
distribution to reach the rest of British Columbia, making it something of a "weak link" in the CTV network. In the British Columbia portion of the Mountain Time Zone
, CIVT is either carried on a higher channel number or unavailable altogether. Calgary
's CFCN is the default CTV station in southeastern British Columbia and has long operated rebroadcasters in this region, while Edmonton
's CFRN serves as the default CTV station in the northeastern part of the province.
Although Industry Canada
technically requires Canadian TV stations to identify themselves over the air by their call letters, this rule is rarely enforced, and most Canadian TV stations identify themselves by their brand name rather than their call letters. On-air, CIVT identifies itself simply as "CTV". Where a channel reference is warranted, it uses "Channel 9" - its primary cable channel number on most cable systems in southwestern British Columbia.
and CanWest Global Communications
for new stations in the Vancouver/Victoria market in August 1995 and January 1996 respectively, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) issued a general call for applications in March 1996, with a public hearing that September. In all, five applications were considered:
The commission's decision, released January 31, 1997, approved the Baton application and denied the others. The prospective Rogers station was denied largely because it would have replaced some of Talentvision's existing ethnic programming with U.S. syndicated fare. Moreover, Talentvision's existing owner (the company now known as Fairchild Media Group) indicated there was "no plan to abandon [the current Talentvision licence] at this time". As for CanWest, the commission determined that the existing BCTV/CHEK twinstick did not justify licensing a new station to a company already serving the market.
The remaining applications were all determined to be high-calibre; however, the deciding factor in favour of Baton/Electrohome was a commitment to air new Vancouver-produced programming across Baton's and Electrohome's stations (e.g., the Vicki Gabereau
Show), a promise that the smaller CHUM and Craig station groups could not match.
, with a morning television show
(VTV Breakfast) and evening newscasts (Vancouver Live) where the anchors stood up and moved throughout the studio. The Toronto station's founder, Moses Znaimer
, went so far as to claim that his former protégé, Baton chief executive Ivan Fecan
, had stolen CITY's format outright for VTV. A noon newscast only lasted for several months after the launch. VTV began moving towards a more conventional news operation in 1999, and renamed its newscasts to simply VTV News.
Upon launch, VTV took over the BC rights to Baton Broadcast System
(BBS) programming, some of which was previously aired on BCTV (such as Disney's One Saturday Morning). However, BCTV and CHEK retained their existing long-term affiliation agreement with the CTV network, meaning that VTV had a 40-hour gap in its weekly schedule that other CTV-owned stations did not have to contend with. To fill these holes in the schedule, and because CHUM did not have a station in the market at that point, VTV also carried some series and movies sourced from CITY-TV Toronto through the end of the 1999-2000 season. As well, some CTV-owned series that did not air nationally due to low expectations and/or scheduling constraints aired instead on VTV (two notable examples were the first episodes of Ally McBeal
and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
, both upgraded to national status by midseason). Previously cancelled Canadian dramas that had already aired on the main network were sometimes aired to fulfill Canadian content
obligations.
By the end of 1997, Baton Broadcasting had bought out Electrohome
's broadcasting operations, and gained full control of both CIVT and the CTV network. Indeed, CIVT had signed on just a few months before Baton closed on its acquisition of controlling interest in CTV, and as a result the "BBS" brand was not implemented locally in Vancouver. By early 1998 the BBS series had in effect become part of CTV's national schedule; VTV would cover up the CTV bug at the lower-right corner of the screen with its own logo.
It soon became an open secret that CIVT would become Vancouver's CTV station at the first opportunity. However, the network's affiliation agreements with BCTV and CHEK were not scheduled to expire until September 2000; due to complications surrounding the breakup of WIC (including Canwest's acquisition of the BCTV/CHEK twinstick and the resulting sale of CKVU), this was later extended by an additional year.
On September 1, 2001, as part of a major network shuffle in the southwestern B.C. television market, CIVT became a full CTV network station, while BCTV became a Global
owned-and-operated station
(O&O) and CHEK joined Canwest's secondary system, CH (later known as E!). Since then, CIVT has not deviated significantly from the national CTV schedule (except for the issues with Oprah
, Wheel of Fortune
, and Jeopardy!
discussed below).
Upon becoming a full network station, CIVT adopted the name BC CTV. This caused some confusion among viewers with BCTV, long the province's dominant station. While the latter station changed its main on-air name to Global BC, it retained the BCTV name for its newscasts until 2006. Given CTV's desire to steal market share from BCTV, there was some speculation that the confusion was deliberate. Indeed, CIVT had just hired Pamela Martin
and Bill Good
, former anchors of BCTV's 5:00pm and 5:30pm newscasts respectively, to co-anchor its 6:00pm newscast.
On July 1, 2002, CIVT stopped using the BC CTV ID on-air, and began to identify itself only as CTV, following the lead of several other CTV-owned stations (such as Regina
's CKCK-TV
and Saskatoon
's CFQC-TV
). The name CTV 9 is often used to refer to CIVT informally, and was for a time incorporated into the station's domain name (ctv9.ca), but it was never officially used as the station's on-air brand.
In March 2004, CIVT became the first station in Western Canada to operate a full-time news helicopter, nicknamed "Chopper 9". In 2005, digital signal CIVT-DT, sometimes known as CTV HD West, became operational. In January 2008, CTV began producing a Western Canada edition of Canada AM
at the CIVT studios; however, the Western version was cancelled in June of the same year.
, due to historical factors. In the 1990s, almost all CTV stations acquired local rights to Oprah, as well as Wheel of Fortune
and Jeopardy!
– however, the local rights were always held by individual stations, not the network. This meant that the B.C. rights, acquired by BCTV, did not revert to the network when that station disaffiliated from CTV. BCTV (rebranded as Global BC) would keep Oprah on its lineup until the program ended in 2011. During this period, CIVT used a number of stopgap measures to fill this hole in its schedule, eventually resorting to airing The Ellen DeGeneres Show
(now a national CTV program) in the 4:00 p.m. timeslot instead.
Similarly, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! did not air on CIVT during the years that most other CTV O&Os carried the programs; the Vancouver-area rights to both series changed hands several times during the 2000s and are currently held by CBC
O&O CBUT
. CIVT was left out of that rotation, making it the only English-language, non-religious station in the market not to have carried the two game shows, despite the series' long association with CTV elsewhere.
CIVT now generally conforms to the standard CTV network schedule, aside from timeslot differences in the daytime schedule in order to maximize simultaneous substitution
opportunities with Seattle stations. As of the 2011-12 season, this will be with three exceptions: The Bold and the Beautiful
and the daytime repeat of etalk
will now both air on CTV Two Victoria, in order to accommodate a new lunch-hour newscast on CIVT. Meanwhile, Canada AM
will be replaced with a new local morning show (CTV Morning Live
), as it will on most of CTV's O&Os in western Canada.
At its launch as VTV, the station operated news bureaus in Victoria, North Vancouver
, Burnaby, Port Coquitlam, Surrey
and Richmond
, alongside its main studio in Downtown Vancouver. Most of these bureaus were closed by 2001, with the exception of the one in Victoria (which operates to this day). On the other hand, the station added bureaus in the Fraser Valley
and Okanagan
, and also operated a bureau in Whistler
in the run-up to and during the 2010 Winter Olympics
.
On November 23, 2009, CIVT began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition
in a newly renovated studio, starting with its 5 p.m. newscast; becoming the first station in Metro Vancouver to produce its local newscasts in HD, and the fourth in Canada after Toronto-based stations CITY, CBLT and CFTO, as well as CTV's national news programming such as Canada AM
and CTV National News
.
On March 18, 2010, CIVT unveiled a new set for its news broadcasts, using elements from the set built by CTV for its coverage
of the 2010 Olympic Games. CIVT's newsroom was redesigned using the news desk, interview area and large screen monitors that were previously installed in the International Broadcast Centre.
On December 7, 2010, Bill Good and Pamela Martin announced their resignation as anchors of the 6 p.m. newscast. Mike Killeen and Tamara Taggart
were announced as their replacements the next day, and began presenting on January 3, 2011.
On October 31, 2011, CIVT debuted an hour-long lunchtime newscast at noon with Keri Adams, who also co-anchors the 5 p.m. newscast with Rob Brown. Two weeks later on November 14, the station debuted a three and a half hour morning newscast under the banner CTV Morning Live
. With the latter addition, CFCF-DT in Montreal and CTV's Toronto flagship station CFTO-DT are now the largest CTV owned-and operated stations that have yet to carry weekday morning newscasts.
Weather team
Sports team
Chopper 9
.jpg)
Reporters
After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion
on August 31, 2011, CIVT-TV moved from pre-transition channel number 33, to its post-transition channel number 32 with a maximum ERP of 33 kW. Through the use of PSIP
, digital television receivers display CIVT-TV's virtual channel
as 32.1.
On February 19, 2009, CIVT-DT was approved to increase its maximum ERP from 2.2 kW to 12.6 kW due to poor reception throughout the Greater Vancouver area including Vancouver proper.
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Owned by Bell Media, it is part of the CTV Television Network
CTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
. It broadcasts on UHF channel 32, and is seen on cable channel 9 in most areas.
Station details
The station's studios are located at 750 Burrard Street750 Burrard Street
750 Burrard Street is a building in Downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, at the northeast corner of Robson Street and Burrard Street.The site was home of the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library from 1957 to 1995...
, the former site of the Vancouver Public Library
Vancouver Public Library
The Vancouver Public Library is the third largest public library system in Canada, with more than 2.5 million items in its collections, 22 branches, approximately 375,000 cardholders, and nearly nine million item borrowings annually...
's central branch, at the intersection of Robson Street
Robson Street
Robson Street is a major southeast-northwest thoroughfare in downtown and West End of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Its core commercial blocks from Burrard Street to Jervis are also known as Robsonstrasse. Its name honours John Robson, a major figure in British Columbia's entry into the...
and Burrard Street
Burrard Street
Burrard Street is a major thoroughfare in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is the central street of Downtown Vancouver and the Financial District. The street is named for Burrard Inlet, located at its northern terminus, which in turn is named for Sir Harry Burrard-Neale.The street starts at...
in Downtown Vancouver. The BC operations of the CTV network itself, including the CTV News
CTV News
CTV News is the news division of the CTV Television Network in Canada. The name CTV News is also applied as the title of local and regional newscasts on the network's owned-and-operated stations , which are closely tied to the national news division...
Vancouver bureau, are also located at the same facility. The station broadcasts a terrestrial
Terrestrial television
Terrestrial television is a mode of television broadcasting which does not involve satellite transmission or cables — typically using radio waves through transmitting and receiving antennas or television antenna aerials...
signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter on Mount Seymour
Mount Seymour
Mount Seymour is a mountain located in Mount Seymour Provincial Park in the District of North Vancouver, British Columbia. It is a part of the North Shore Mountains, rising to the north from the shores of Burrard Inlet and Indian Arm to a summit of above the Indian River and Deep Cove neighbourhoods...
; it was the only CTV network station to broadcast its primary signal on UHF prior to the digital transition
Digital television in Canada
Digital television in Canada is transmitted using the ATSC standards developed for and in use in the United States. Because Canada and the U.S...
.
CIVT is the only full-fledged CTV station in British Columbia, as well as in the Pacific Standard Time zone. However, the station only has one terrestrial transmitter, and that UHF signal only reaches Vancouver, Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
, and neighbouring Whatcom County, Washington
Whatcom County, Washington
Whatcom County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. Its name ultimately derives from the Lummi word Xwotʼqom, meaning "noisy water." As of 2010, the population was 201,140. The county seat is at Bellingham, which is also the county's largest city...
. Accordingly, the station relies exclusively on cable
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
and satellite
Direct broadcast satellite
Direct broadcast satellite is a term used to refer to satellite television broadcasts intended for home reception.A designation broader than DBS would be direct-to-home signals, or DTH. This has initially distinguished the transmissions directly intended for home viewers from cable television...
distribution to reach the rest of British Columbia, making it something of a "weak link" in the CTV network. In the British Columbia portion of the Mountain Time Zone
Mountain Time Zone
The Mountain Time Zone of North America keeps time by subtracting seven hours from Coordinated Universal Time, also known as Greenwich Mean Time, during the shortest days of autumn and winter , and by subtracting six hours during daylight saving time in the spring, summer, and early autumn...
, CIVT is either carried on a higher channel number or unavailable altogether. Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
's CFCN is the default CTV station in southeastern British Columbia and has long operated rebroadcasters in this region, while Edmonton
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...
's CFRN serves as the default CTV station in the northeastern part of the province.
Although Industry Canada
Industry Canada
Industry Canada is the department of the Government of Canada with responsibility for regional economic development, investment, and innovation/research and development. The department employs 6104 FTEs across Canada....
technically requires Canadian TV stations to identify themselves over the air by their call letters, this rule is rarely enforced, and most Canadian TV stations identify themselves by their brand name rather than their call letters. On-air, CIVT identifies itself simply as "CTV". Where a channel reference is warranted, it uses "Channel 9" - its primary cable channel number on most cable systems in southwestern British Columbia.
Licensing
After receiving applications from Rogers CommunicationsRogers Communications
Rogers Communications Inc. is one of Canada's largest communications companies, particularly in the field of wireless communications, cable television, home phone and internet with additional telecommunications and mass media assets...
and CanWest Global Communications
CanWest Global Communications
Canwest Global Communications Corporation, which operated under the corporate brand Canwest, was a major Canadian media company based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with its head offices at Canwest Place...
for new stations in the Vancouver/Victoria market in August 1995 and January 1996 respectively, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) issued a general call for applications in March 1996, with a public hearing that September. In all, five applications were considered:
- Rogers proposed a multicultural station similar to its CFMT in TorontoTorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, to replace an existing regional specialty channel, TalentvisionTalentvisionTalentvision is a Canadian Mandarin Chinese Category A specialty channel. It is owned by the Vancouver based Fairchild Media Group and Television Broadcast Limited. Talentvision's studios are located in Richmond, British Columbia.Talentvision features programming from Mainland China as well as...
; - CanWest proposed a new station in Victoria, in parallel to its existing Vancouver station CKVU, in an attempt to gain parity with the market's existing BCTV and CHEK twinstickTwinstickA twinstick, in Canadian broadcasting, is a term for two television stations, broadcasting in the same market, which are owned by the same company...
under the ownership of Western International CommunicationsWestern International CommunicationsWIC Western International Communications Ltd.The apparent occurrence of "RAS syndrome" here was in fact part of the company's legal name. was a Canadian media company that operated from 1982 to 2000, with operations including broadcast and specialty television, radio, and satellite distribution via...
(WIC); - The Baton/Electrohome Alliance, CHUM LimitedCHUM LimitedCHUM Limited was a media company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from 1945 to 2007. Immediately prior to its acquisition, it held full or joint control of two Canadian television systems — Citytv and A-Channel — comprising 11 local stations, and one CBC Television affiliate, one...
, and Craig Broadcast Systems each proposed a new, independent local station focused on Vancouver.
The commission's decision, released January 31, 1997, approved the Baton application and denied the others. The prospective Rogers station was denied largely because it would have replaced some of Talentvision's existing ethnic programming with U.S. syndicated fare. Moreover, Talentvision's existing owner (the company now known as Fairchild Media Group) indicated there was "no plan to abandon [the current Talentvision licence] at this time". As for CanWest, the commission determined that the existing BCTV/CHEK twinstick did not justify licensing a new station to a company already serving the market.
The remaining applications were all determined to be high-calibre; however, the deciding factor in favour of Baton/Electrohome was a commitment to air new Vancouver-produced programming across Baton's and Electrohome's stations (e.g., the Vicki Gabereau
Vicki Gabereau
Vicki Frances Gabereau is a Canadian radio and television personality. Most recently she hosted an eponymously titled afternoon talk show on CTV Television Network, which wrapped up production on April 8, 2005 after 8 seasons...
Show), a promise that the smaller CHUM and Craig station groups could not match.
As Vancouver Television
CIVT first went on the air as Vancouver Television or VTV on September 22, 1997. The station's news operation initially emulated CityPulse on Toronto's CITY-TVCITY-TV
CITY-DT, Channel 57 , is a television station based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada owned and operated by Rogers Media...
, with a morning television show
Breakfast television
Breakfast television or morning show , is a type of infotainment television program, broadcast live in the morning...
(VTV Breakfast) and evening newscasts (Vancouver Live) where the anchors stood up and moved throughout the studio. The Toronto station's founder, Moses Znaimer
Moses Znaimer
Moses Znaimer, M.A., O.Ont is a co-founder and former head of Citytv, the first independent television station in Toronto, Canada, and the current head of ZoomerMedia.-Early life and career:...
, went so far as to claim that his former protégé, Baton chief executive Ivan Fecan
Ivan Fecan
Ivan Fecan is a retired Canadian media executive. Fecan was the president and CEO of Baton Broadcasting and its successor CTVglobemedia from 1996 to 2011, and CEO of the CTV Television Network from late 1998 to 2011....
, had stolen CITY's format outright for VTV. A noon newscast only lasted for several months after the launch. VTV began moving towards a more conventional news operation in 1999, and renamed its newscasts to simply VTV News.
Upon launch, VTV took over the BC rights to Baton Broadcast System
Baton Broadcast System
ONT was initiated in 1991, consisting of eight CTV affiliates - seven owned by Baton and Electrohome's CKCO. Initially providing 10.5 hours of common programming each week, this was soon expanded to 35 hours....
(BBS) programming, some of which was previously aired on BCTV (such as Disney's One Saturday Morning). However, BCTV and CHEK retained their existing long-term affiliation agreement with the CTV network, meaning that VTV had a 40-hour gap in its weekly schedule that other CTV-owned stations did not have to contend with. To fill these holes in the schedule, and because CHUM did not have a station in the market at that point, VTV also carried some series and movies sourced from CITY-TV Toronto through the end of the 1999-2000 season. As well, some CTV-owned series that did not air nationally due to low expectations and/or scheduling constraints aired instead on VTV (two notable examples were the first episodes of Ally McBeal
Ally McBeal
Ally McBeal is an American legal comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network from 1997 to 2002. The series was created by David E. Kelley, who also served as the executive producer, along with Bill D'Elia...
and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
, both upgraded to national status by midseason). Previously cancelled Canadian dramas that had already aired on the main network were sometimes aired to fulfill Canadian content
Canadian content
Canadian content refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requirements that radio and television broadcasters must air a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from...
obligations.
By the end of 1997, Baton Broadcasting had bought out Electrohome
Electrohome
Electrohome was one of Canada's largest manufacturers of television sets from 1949 to 1984. The company was also involved in television broadcasting....
's broadcasting operations, and gained full control of both CIVT and the CTV network. Indeed, CIVT had signed on just a few months before Baton closed on its acquisition of controlling interest in CTV, and as a result the "BBS" brand was not implemented locally in Vancouver. By early 1998 the BBS series had in effect become part of CTV's national schedule; VTV would cover up the CTV bug at the lower-right corner of the screen with its own logo.
It soon became an open secret that CIVT would become Vancouver's CTV station at the first opportunity. However, the network's affiliation agreements with BCTV and CHEK were not scheduled to expire until September 2000; due to complications surrounding the breakup of WIC (including Canwest's acquisition of the BCTV/CHEK twinstick and the resulting sale of CKVU), this was later extended by an additional year.
As a CTV O&O
Global Television Network
Global Television Network is an English language privately owned television network in Canada, owned by Calgary-based Shaw Communications, as part of its Shaw Media division...
owned-and-operated station
Owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry , an owned-and-operated station usually refers to a television station or radio station that is owned by the network with which it is associated...
(O&O) and CHEK joined Canwest's secondary system, CH (later known as E!). Since then, CIVT has not deviated significantly from the national CTV schedule (except for the issues with Oprah
The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show is an American syndicated talk show hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey. It ran nationally for 25 seasons beginning in 1986, before concluding in 2011. It is the highest-rated talk show in American television history....
, Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune (U.S. game show)
Wheel of Fortune is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin, which premiered in 1975. Contestants compete to solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a large wheel. The title refers to the show's giant carnival wheel that...
, and Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
discussed below).
Upon becoming a full network station, CIVT adopted the name BC CTV. This caused some confusion among viewers with BCTV, long the province's dominant station. While the latter station changed its main on-air name to Global BC, it retained the BCTV name for its newscasts until 2006. Given CTV's desire to steal market share from BCTV, there was some speculation that the confusion was deliberate. Indeed, CIVT had just hired Pamela Martin
Pamela Martin
Pamela Martin is an American-born television reporter on Canadian TV. She formerly co-anchored the weekday 6pm newscasts on CTV British Columbia alongside Bill Good....
and Bill Good
Bill Good
Bill Good is a Canadian television personality and CKNW radio talk show host. He formerly co-anchored the 6:00pm newscast on Vancouver's CIVT alongside Pamela Martin....
, former anchors of BCTV's 5:00pm and 5:30pm newscasts respectively, to co-anchor its 6:00pm newscast.
On July 1, 2002, CIVT stopped using the BC CTV ID on-air, and began to identify itself only as CTV, following the lead of several other CTV-owned stations (such as Regina
Regina, Saskatchewan
Regina is the capital city of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province and a cultural and commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. It is governed by Regina City Council. Regina is the cathedral city of the Roman Catholic and Romanian Orthodox...
's CKCK-TV
CKCK-TV
CKCK-DT, VHF channel 8 , is a CTV owned and operated television station based in Regina, Saskatchewan. Originally signing on in 1954, CKCK was the first privately owned television station in Western Canada.-History:...
and Saskatoon
Saskatoon
Saskatoon is a city in central Saskatchewan, Canada, on the South Saskatchewan River. Residents of the city of Saskatoon are called Saskatonians. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Corman Park No. 344....
's CFQC-TV
CFQC-TV
CFQC-DT is a Canadian television station, serving Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The station is a CTV Television Network affiliate which can be seen over-the-air on digital channel 8, on local cable and via satellite on Bell TV Channel 249 and Shaw Direct Channel 378 on Classic channel...
). The name CTV 9 is often used to refer to CIVT informally, and was for a time incorporated into the station's domain name (ctv9.ca), but it was never officially used as the station's on-air brand.
In March 2004, CIVT became the first station in Western Canada to operate a full-time news helicopter, nicknamed "Chopper 9". In 2005, digital signal CIVT-DT, sometimes known as CTV HD West, became operational. In January 2008, CTV began producing a Western Canada edition of Canada AM
Canada AM
Canada AM is a Canadian breakfast television news show, which has aired on the CTV Television Network since 1972. It is currently hosted by Beverly Thomson and Seamus O'Regan, with Marci Ien reporting from the headline news desk and Jeff Hutcheson presenting the weather forecast and sports...
at the CIVT studios; however, the Western version was cancelled in June of the same year.
Programming
For its first ten years as a CTV O&O, CIVT was the only such station not to carry The Oprah Winfrey ShowThe Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show is an American syndicated talk show hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey. It ran nationally for 25 seasons beginning in 1986, before concluding in 2011. It is the highest-rated talk show in American television history....
, due to historical factors. In the 1990s, almost all CTV stations acquired local rights to Oprah, as well as Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune (U.S. game show)
Wheel of Fortune is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin, which premiered in 1975. Contestants compete to solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a large wheel. The title refers to the show's giant carnival wheel that...
and Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
– however, the local rights were always held by individual stations, not the network. This meant that the B.C. rights, acquired by BCTV, did not revert to the network when that station disaffiliated from CTV. BCTV (rebranded as Global BC) would keep Oprah on its lineup until the program ended in 2011. During this period, CIVT used a number of stopgap measures to fill this hole in its schedule, eventually resorting to airing The Ellen DeGeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, often shortened to Ellen, is an American television talk show hosted by comedian/actress Ellen DeGeneres. Debuting on September 8, 2003, it is produced by Telepictures and airs in syndication, including stations owned by NBC Universal. For its first five seasons, the show...
(now a national CTV program) in the 4:00 p.m. timeslot instead.
Similarly, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! did not air on CIVT during the years that most other CTV O&Os carried the programs; the Vancouver-area rights to both series changed hands several times during the 2000s and are currently held by CBC
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
O&O CBUT
CBUT
CBUT-DT is the CBC's television station in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and the flagship CBC Television station for the Pacific Time Zone. The station transmits its main terrestrial signal from a tower atop Mount Seymour....
. CIVT was left out of that rotation, making it the only English-language, non-religious station in the market not to have carried the two game shows, despite the series' long association with CTV elsewhere.
CIVT now generally conforms to the standard CTV network schedule, aside from timeslot differences in the daytime schedule in order to maximize simultaneous substitution
Simultaneous substitution
Simultaneous substitution is a practice mandated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requiring Canadian cable, direct broadcast satellite and multichannel multipoint distribution service television distribution companies to substitute the signal of a foreign or...
opportunities with Seattle stations. As of the 2011-12 season, this will be with three exceptions: The Bold and the Beautiful
The Bold and the Beautiful
The Bold and the Beautiful is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS Daytime. It premiered on March 23, 1987....
and the daytime repeat of etalk
ETalk
etalk is a Canadian entertainment news show hosted by Ben Mulroney and Tanya Kim. It airs weekdays weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on CTV, at 1:30 p.m. ET on CTV Two and at 6 p.m. ET and 11:30 p.m. ET on E!...
will now both air on CTV Two Victoria, in order to accommodate a new lunch-hour newscast on CIVT. Meanwhile, Canada AM
Canada AM
Canada AM is a Canadian breakfast television news show, which has aired on the CTV Television Network since 1972. It is currently hosted by Beverly Thomson and Seamus O'Regan, with Marci Ien reporting from the headline news desk and Jeff Hutcheson presenting the weather forecast and sports...
will be replaced with a new local morning show (CTV Morning Live
CTV Morning Live
CTV Morning Live is the name of the local morning newscasts airing on CTV's owned-and-operated stations in Western Canada, specifically, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Regina as well as on CTV Two stations in Ottawa and Atlantic Canada...
), as it will on most of CTV's O&Os in western Canada.
News operation
The station currently produces a total of 38 hours of local newscasts each week, with 7 hours on each weekday, and 1½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays.At its launch as VTV, the station operated news bureaus in Victoria, North Vancouver
North Vancouver, British Columbia (city)
The City of North Vancouver is a waterfront municipality on the north shore of Burrard Inlet, directly across from Vancouver, British Columbia. It is the smallest of the three North Shore municipalities, and the most urbanized as well...
, Burnaby, Port Coquitlam, Surrey
Surrey, British Columbia
Surrey is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of Metro Vancouver, the governing body of the Greater Vancouver Regional District...
and Richmond
Richmond, British Columbia
Richmond is a coastal city, incorporated in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Part of Metro Vancouver, its neighbouring communities are Vancouver and Burnaby to the north, New Westminster to the east, and Delta to the south, while the Strait of Georgia forms its western border...
, alongside its main studio in Downtown Vancouver. Most of these bureaus were closed by 2001, with the exception of the one in Victoria (which operates to this day). On the other hand, the station added bureaus in the Fraser Valley
Fraser Valley
The Fraser Valley is the section of the Fraser River basin in southwestern British Columbia downstream of the Fraser Canyon. The term is sometimes used to refer to the Fraser Canyon and stretches upstream from there, but in general British Columbian usage of the term refers to the stretch of the...
and Okanagan
Okanagan
The Okanagan , also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as Okanagan Country is a region located in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. As of 2009, the region's population is approximately 350,927. The...
, and also operated a bureau in Whistler
Whistler, British Columbia
Whistler is a Canadian resort town in the southern Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in the province of British Columbia, Canada, approximately north of Vancouver...
in the run-up to and during the 2010 Winter Olympics
2010 Winter Olympics
The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially the XXI Olympic Winter Games or the 21st Winter Olympics, were a major international multi-sport event held from February 12–28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and the University...
.
On November 23, 2009, CIVT began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
in a newly renovated studio, starting with its 5 p.m. newscast; becoming the first station in Metro Vancouver to produce its local newscasts in HD, and the fourth in Canada after Toronto-based stations CITY, CBLT and CFTO, as well as CTV's national news programming such as Canada AM
Canada AM
Canada AM is a Canadian breakfast television news show, which has aired on the CTV Television Network since 1972. It is currently hosted by Beverly Thomson and Seamus O'Regan, with Marci Ien reporting from the headline news desk and Jeff Hutcheson presenting the weather forecast and sports...
and CTV National News
CTV National News
CTV National News is CTV's flagship newscast, which airs at 11:00 p.m. local time on the CTV stations across Canada, and live at 10:00pm ET, with repeats hourly up until 2 a.m. ET on CTV News Channel, CTV's 24-hour cable news television channel, and the previous day's can be seen on the Internet. ...
.
On March 18, 2010, CIVT unveiled a new set for its news broadcasts, using elements from the set built by CTV for its coverage
Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium
Established in 2007, Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium is a joint venture set up by Canadian media companies Bell Media and Rogers Media to produce the Canadian broadcasts of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games and the London 2012 Olympics Games...
of the 2010 Olympic Games. CIVT's newsroom was redesigned using the news desk, interview area and large screen monitors that were previously installed in the International Broadcast Centre.
On December 7, 2010, Bill Good and Pamela Martin announced their resignation as anchors of the 6 p.m. newscast. Mike Killeen and Tamara Taggart
Tamara Taggart
Tamara Taggart is a Canadian television presenter. She currently serves as the weekday anchor of CTV News at Six alongside with Mike Killeen on CIVT-TV in Vancouver, British Columbia....
were announced as their replacements the next day, and began presenting on January 3, 2011.
On October 31, 2011, CIVT debuted an hour-long lunchtime newscast at noon with Keri Adams, who also co-anchors the 5 p.m. newscast with Rob Brown. Two weeks later on November 14, the station debuted a three and a half hour morning newscast under the banner CTV Morning Live
CTV Morning Live
CTV Morning Live is the name of the local morning newscasts airing on CTV's owned-and-operated stations in Western Canada, specifically, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Regina as well as on CTV Two stations in Ottawa and Atlantic Canada...
. With the latter addition, CFCF-DT in Montreal and CTV's Toronto flagship station CFTO-DT are now the largest CTV owned-and operated stations that have yet to carry weekday morning newscasts.
Newscast titles
- Vancouver Breakfast / Vancouver Live (1997–1999)
- VTV News (1999–2001)
- CTV NewsCTV NewsCTV News is the news division of the CTV Television Network in Canada. The name CTV News is also applied as the title of local and regional newscasts on the network's owned-and-operated stations , which are closely tied to the national news division...
(2001–present; the BC CTV logo was used on the opening sequences and displayed as an on-screen bugDigital on-screen graphicA digital on-screen graphic is a watermark-like station logo that many television broadcasters overlay over a portion of the screen-area of their programs to identify the channel...
between 2001 and 2002, but the newscasts were already referred to as CTV News in voiceovers and reporter out-cues during that time)
Station slogans
- Your Home. Your News. (2005–2009)
- BC's Best Newscast (2009–2010)
- Working for You (2010–present)
News team
Anchors- Keri AdamsKeri AdamsKeri Adams is a Canadian journalist. She is currently the anchor of CTV News at 11:30 at CTV British Columbia. She is married to Global BC sportscaster Jay Durant...
- weekdays at noon and 5 p.m. - Rob BrownRob BrownRob Brown may refer to:* Rob Brown , member of the UK electronic band, Autechre* Rob Brown , National Hockey League player* Rob Brown , Finding Forrester* Rob Brown , reporter and anchor for CTV News-See also:...
- weeknights at 5 p.m. - Coleen ChristieColeen ChristieColeen Christie is a Canadian television journalist. She joined CIVT-TV in 1997 as an entertainment reporter and host. Shortly thereafter, she joined the VTV Breakfast team as a news anchor. In 2001 she was named co-host of CTV News at 5 with Ravi Baichwal...
- weeknights at 11:30 p.m. - Aamer HaleemAamer HaleemAamer Haleem is a Canadian radio and television personality, who hosted the weekday afternoon current affairs program The Point on CBC Radio One. until it was canceled on June 26, 2009....
- weekday mornings CTV Morning Live (5:30-9 a.m.) - Mike Killeen - weeknights at 6 p.m.
- Norma Reid - weekday mornings CTV Morning Live (5:30-9 a.m.)
- Tamara TaggartTamara TaggartTamara Taggart is a Canadian television presenter. She currently serves as the weekday anchor of CTV News at Six alongside with Mike Killeen on CIVT-TV in Vancouver, British Columbia....
- weeknights at 6 p.m. - Jina YouJina YouJina You is a Canadian television news broadcaster. Born in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, she moved to the Lower Mainland soon after and was raised in Maple Ridge, British Columbia...
- weekends at 6 and 11:30 p.m.; also weeknight reporter
Weather team
- Michael Kuss (CMOS-endorsed weathercaster) - lead weather anchor; weeknights at 5, 6 and 11:30 p.m.
- Marke Driesschen - weather anchor; weekday mornings CTV Morning Live (5:30-9 a.m.) and weekdays at noon
- Duane English - weather anchor; weekends at 6 and 11:30 p.m.
Sports team
- Jason Pires - lead sports anchor; weeknights at 5 and 11:30 p.m.
- Perry Solkowski - sports anchor; weekdays at noon, and weeknights at 6 p.m.
- Kelcey Brade - sports anchor; weekends at 6 and 11:30 p.m.
- Farhan Lalji - sports anchor; fill-in
- Blake Price - sports anchor; fill-in
Chopper 9
- Gary Barndt
- Pete Cline
- Murray Titus
Reporters
- St. John Alexander - general assignment reporter
- Jim Beatty - Victoria Bureau chief
- Rob Brown - general assignment reporter; also fill-in anchor
- Michele Brunoro - Fraser Valley Bureau reporter
- Penny Daflos - general assignment reporter
- Kimberly Davidson - general assignment reporter reporter
- Shaheed Devji - general assignment reporter
- Julia Foy - Fraser ValleyFraser Valley Regional DistrictThe Fraser Valley Regional District is a regional district in British Columbia, Canada. The FVRD covers an area of 13,361.74 km²...
Bureau reporter - Sarah Galashan - CTV National News Vancouver Bureau chief
- Brent Gilbert - general assignment reporter
- Peter Grainger - general assignment reporter
- Heron HanumanHeron HanumanHeron Hanuman is a Canadian journalist. He is currently the manager and host of CTV British Columbia's online platform, ctvbc.ca. He is a former reporter/anchor for CTV News.-External links:* * CTV British Columbia website...
- ctvbc.ca Manager/Host - Nafessa Karim - general assignment reporter
- Mi-Jung LeeMi-Jung LeeMi-Jung Lee is a Korean Canadian television personality, based in Vancouver. She most recently served as co-host of the Western Canada edition of the breakfast television program Canada AM, until its cancellation in June 2008. Earlier in her career, she was a news anchor for CHEK-TV in Victoria...
- lead investigative reporter (The Investigators); also fill-in anchor - Dr. Rhonda Low - medical reporter (Your Health)
- Ann Luu - CTV Morning Live traffic specialist
- Kent Molgat - OkanaganOkanaganThe Okanagan , also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as Okanagan Country is a region located in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. As of 2009, the region's population is approximately 350,927. The...
Bureau reporter - Shannon Paterson - general assignment reporter
- Norma Reid - general assignment reporter; also fill-in anchor
- Lisa Rossington - general assignment reporter
- Bhinder Sajan - general assignment reporter
- Brent Shearer - general assignment reporter
- Lynda Steele - consumer reporter (Steele On Your Side)
- Maria Weisgarber - general assignment reporter; also fill-in anchor
- Jon Woodward - general assignment and investigation reporter
Photojournalists
- Curtis Allen - Kelowna Bureau
- Chris Brinton - Victoria Bureau
- Wade Carpenter
- Scott Connerton
- Shawn Foss
- Jim Fong
- Steve Hughes
- Wayne Hancheruk
- Roman Komm
- Shelly Moore
- Steve Murray
- Herbert Ramos
- Gary Rutherford
- Jazz Sanghera
- Steve Saunders
Notable past on-air staff
- Ravi BaichwalRavi BaichwalRavi Baichwal is a news anchor and reporter at WLS-TV in Chicago. In 2008 he won the Chicago Emmy Award for best anchor from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He was a CTV News Channel Morning anchor weekdays from 6 AM to 10 AM from 2002 to 2006...
- anchor (now at WLS-TVWLS-TVWLS-TV, virtual channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The station operates their full power digital operations on UHF channel 44, with their digital fill-in translator on VHF channel...
in ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
) - Satinder BindraSatinder BindraSatinder Bindra is a television news reporter, most recently working as a Senior International Correspondent with CNN based in New Delhi. He left the network in May 2007. He is a Canadian citizen of Indian origin...
- reporter (now at CNNCNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
) - Steve ChaoSteve ChaoSteve Chao is a Canadian journalist. He was the Far East and Asia Bureau Chief for CTV News. He is currently a reporter for Al Jazeera English. He is based in Beijing. Chao was raised in Toronto where he attended Dr Norman Bethune Collegiate Institute high school. He began his career in Ottawa,...
- reporter (now with Al Jazeera English TV) - Monika DeolMonika DeolMonika Deol is a Canadian television personality. She began as a reporter for Citytv in Toronto, and later became a VJ for MuchMusic, hosting and co-producing Electric Circus from 1988 to 1996...
- anchor - Vicki GabereauVicki GabereauVicki Frances Gabereau is a Canadian radio and television personality. Most recently she hosted an eponymously titled afternoon talk show on CTV Television Network, which wrapped up production on April 8, 2005 after 8 seasons...
- talk show host - Kate Gadjosik - weather anchor, now Lead Weather Anchor at Global Winnipeg
- Bill GoodBill GoodBill Good is a Canadian television personality and CKNW radio talk show host. He formerly co-anchored the 6:00pm newscast on Vancouver's CIVT alongside Pamela Martin....
- CTV News at Six anchor (currently with CKNW) - Rena HeerRena HeerRena Heer is a Canadian television personality on CP24 as of February 2009. From January 28, 2008 to June 6, 2008, she handled weather along with Jeff Hutcheson on CTV's Canada AM which was a revamped version of the national Canada AM show. On June 6, 2008, CTV announced that it was cancelling the...
- weathercaster (now with CP24 in TorontoTorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
) - Pamela MartinPamela MartinPamela Martin is an American-born television reporter on Canadian TV. She formerly co-anchored the weekday 6pm newscasts on CTV British Columbia alongside Bill Good....
- CTV News at Six anchor (now as Director of Outreach for B.C. Premier Christy Clark) - Dagmar MidcapDagmar MidcapDagmar Midcap is a media personality originally based in Vancouver, British Columbia.A graduate of British Columbia Institute of Technology's broadcast journalism program in 1990, Midcap began her television career on WBNX-TV in Akron, Ohio, appearing on a weekly current affairs program...
- weathercaster and traffic reporter (most recently at WGCL-TVWGCL-TVWGCL-TV, virtual channel 46.1 is the CBS-affiliated television station serving the Atlanta, Georgia area. Its city of license is Atlanta, and the station is owned by Meredith Corporation, making it the largest-market CBS station not owned by the network...
in Atlanta) - Chris OlsenChris OlsenChris Olsen is a jazz pianist, composer, poet, and vocalist. Currently a member of the fusion group Time in Motion , and former member of South Dakota based funk ensemble Greenhouse....
- consumer reporter (now as Press Secretary for B.C. Premier Christy Clark) - Blake PriceBlake PriceBlake Price is a Canadian sports journalist. He is currently a co-host on the Team 1040 sports radio alongside former NHLer Dave Tomlinson. Price previously worked at MOJO sports radio as well as television in Saskatoon, Sports Page in Vancouver and three years at TSN anchoring SportsCentre from...
- sports talk show host (The Team 1040 sports radio) - Renu Bakshi
Digital television and high definition
| Broadcasting in Digital | Yes |
| Programs in HD | Yes |
| News in HD | Yes |
| PSIP functioning properly | Yes |
After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion
Digital television in Canada
Digital television in Canada is transmitted using the ATSC standards developed for and in use in the United States. Because Canada and the U.S...
on August 31, 2011, CIVT-TV moved from pre-transition channel number 33, to its post-transition channel number 32 with a maximum ERP of 33 kW. Through the use of PSIP
Program and System Information Protocol
The Program and System Information Protocol is the protocol used in the ATSC digital television system for carrying metadata about each channel in the broadcast MPEG transport stream of a TV station and for publishing information about television programs so that viewers can select what to watch...
, digital television receivers display CIVT-TV's virtual channel
Virtual channel
In telecommunications, a logical channel number , also known as virtual channel, is a channel designation which differs from that of the actual radio channel on which the signal travels....
as 32.1.
On February 19, 2009, CIVT-DT was approved to increase its maximum ERP from 2.2 kW to 12.6 kW due to poor reception throughout the Greater Vancouver area including Vancouver proper.