Citytv
Citytv is a Canadian television network owned by the Rogers Sports & Media subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The network consists of six owned-and-operated television stations located in the metropolitan areas of Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver, a cable-only service that serves the province of Saskatchewan, and two independently owned affiliates serving smaller cities in British Columbia. There is also one station using the brand name serving Bogotá, Colombia.
The Citytv brand name originates from its flagship station, CITY-TV in Toronto, a station that went on the air in September 28, 1972, in the former Electric Circus nightclub, and which became known for an intensely local format based on newscasts aimed at younger viewers, nightly movies, and music and cultural programming. The Citytv brand first expanded with then-parent company CHUM Limited's acquisition of former Global owned-and-operated station CKVU-TV in Vancouver, followed by its purchase of Craig Media's stations and the re-branding of its A-Channel system in Central Canada as Citytv in August 2005. CHUM Limited was acquired by CTVglobemedia in 2007; to comply with Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ownership limits, the Citytv stations were sold to Rogers. The network grew through further affiliations with three Jim Pattison Group-owned stations, along with Rogers's acquisition of the cable-only Saskatchewan Communications Network and Montreal's CJNT-DT. At one point, Citytv also existed in Barcelona and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
While patterned after the original station in Toronto, since the 2000s, and particularly since its acquisition by Rogers, Citytv has moved towards a series-based prime time schedule much like its competitors', albeit one still focused on younger demographics.
Early beginnings
The licence of the original Citytv station, granted the callsign of CITY-TV by the CRTC, was awarded in Toronto on November 25, 1971, by Channel Seventy-Nine Ltd., which consisted of – among others – Phyllis Switzer, Moses Znaimer, Jerry Grafstein and Edgar Cowan. The four principal owners raised over $2 million to help start up the station, with Grafstein raising about 50% of the required funds, Znaimer raising around 25%, and the remainder being accrued by Switzer and Cowan. CITY-TV began broadcasting on September 28, 1972, for the first time using the "Citytv" brand and initially operated as an independent station, and its transmitter operated at an effective radiated power of 31kW. It began operation using UHF channel 79. The station operated from studio facilities located at 99 Queen Street East, near Church Street, at the former Electric Circus nightclub.The station lost money early on, and was in debt by 1975. Multiple Access Ltd. purchased a 45% interest in the station, and sold its stake to CHUM Limited, the parent company of CKVR-TV in Barrie, Ontario, in 1978.
On May 1, 1976, the station's main transmitter began broadcasting at 208 kW from the CN Tower. The station switched channel allocations on July 1, 1983, moving to UHF channel 57, the result of Industry Canada's decision to reassign frequencies corresponding to high-band UHF channels 70 to 83 to the new AMPS mobile phone systems as a result of a CCIR international convention in 1982.
In 1981, CITY was purchased outright by CHUM with the sale of Moses Znaimer's interest in the station. Znaimer remained with the station as an executive until 2003, when he retired from his management role but continued to work with the station on some production projects. CITY and the other CHUM-owned television properties moved their operations to the company's headquarters at 299 Queen Street West in May 1987, which became one of the most recognizable landmarks in the city. On March 30, 1998, CHUM launched CablePulse 24, a local cable news channel whose programming used anchors from and featured reports filed by CITY-TV's news staff, rebroadcasts of the station's CityPulse newscasts and select programming from CITY and other CHUM stations.
Expansion beyond Toronto
CHUM added CITY-TV's three rebroadcast transmitters in Woodstock on September 1, 1986, while another transmitter was set up in Ottawa in 1996.CITY-TV's groundbreaking format became successful when CHUM dropped CKVR's longtime affiliation with CBC Television on September 1, 1995 and relaunched it as an independent station. Eventually, CHUM began to replicate the format when it acquired four Ontario stations from Baton Broadcasting in 1997, namely CHRO in Pembroke, CFPL-TV in London, CKNX-TV in Wingham, and CHWI-TV in Windsor. Most of these stations were also former CBC affiliates, and in markets where CKVR's sister station, CITY-TV, was already or subsequently became available on basic cable.
Until 1997, CHUM owned two television outlets in Atlantic Canada: the ATV system of CTV affiliates, and cable-only channel ASN. Many Citytv programs were aired on ASN during this period, effectively making ASN an unbranded Citytv O&O. Both ATV and ASN were acquired by Baton Broadcasting in 1997; ASN continued to air much of the Citytv schedule until it became part of the A television system in 2008. This means that Atlantic Canada is now the largest gap in City's local coverage area, and there are few remaining realistic options for Rogers to purchase or affiliate with existing stations in the region. This had led Rogers to attempt, unsuccessfully, to request simultaneous substitution privileges for Citytv Toronto on its cable systems in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. Prior to the CRTC's decision to refuse the request, Rogers had hinted that a similar agreement had been tentatively reached with EastLink, the main cable provider in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
In 2000, after Canwest Global Communications acquired the assets of Western International Communications which led to a network shuffle in Vancouver, CHUM applied to the CRTC to acquire CKVU-TV on July 26, 2001 for $175 million, with the intention of making it a newest Citytv station. CHUM planned on spending $8.03 million on British Columbia-based independent productions, $5.95 million on local news and information programming, and $1.37 million on local culture, social policy, and talent development over a period of seven years. A similar application was filed in 1996 by the CRTC but was dropped in favor of Baton launching CIVT-TV in 1997. CHUM gained CRTC approval for its acquisition of CKVU on October 15, 2001. Meanwhile, CIVI-TV in Victoria, British Columbia went on the air in October 2001 using the same format as CITY-TV. CKVU became known as "Citytv Vancouver" on July 22, 2002. Prior to CHUM's acquisition of CKVU, some Citytv programming were split between KVOS-TV in Bellingham, Washington, which is close to Vancouver, and CTV-owned CIVT-TV, during the 1990s and early 2000s when Citytv did not have a station in Vancouver; CHAN-TV, then a CTV affiliate, also aired some Citytv programs, such as CityLine. The WIC stations in Alberta bought provincial rights to some Citytv programs prior to the launch of CKAL and CKEM in 1997.
File:City TV Building at The Forks, in Winnipeg Manitoba.JPG|thumb|upright|Citytv Building at The Forks, in Winnipeg, Manitoba
On April 12, 2004, CHUM Limited announced a deal to purchase Craig Media for $265 million. The move came more than a month after the CRTC denied CHUM's applications for new Calgary and Edmonton stations, which they applied back in 2003, because the market did not have sufficient advertising revenue to support a new entrant. The sale was approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on November 19, 2004. CHUM had to sell off Toronto 1 because it already owned stations in Toronto and nearby Barrie; Toronto 1 was sold to Quebecor Media, owners of the media units TVA and Sun Media.
In February 2005, CHUM announced it would align Craig's A-Channel stations with its existing major-market stations under the Citytv brand. No other significant changes were made, since the A-Channel stations's on-air look had always been very similar to that of Citytv; they initially retained their local programs, relaunched under Citytv's Breakfast Television morning brand and CityNews news brand. CHUM hoped to lift the ratings of the stations with the new moniker. The change took effect on August 2 of the same year, when the A-Channel name was transferred to CHUM's NewNet stations.
Image:citytv-nissan6839.JPG|thumb|Citytv news vehicle in Edmonton
On July 12, 2006, CHUM announced that it would dramatically reduce its newsgathering operations in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg, as well as in several other cities. It laid off 281 part- and full-time employees, effectively cancelleing its supper-hour, late-night and weekend newscasts, laying off hundreds of news department staff among 281 job cuts. In a coincidental development, that same day, BCE Inc., owner of Bell Globemedia and the parent company of CTV, announced it would buy CHUM Limited.
Ownership changes
Bell Globemedia had intended to retain CHUM's Citytv system while divesting CHUM's A-Channel stations and Alberta cable channel Access to get the CRTC to approve the acquisition.In October 2006, Citytv launched a daily national newscast, CityNews International, which was produced in Toronto for broadcast on the western Canadian stations and on CHUM's Toronto news channel CP24. The Edmonton and Calgary stations also began broadcasting a daily 30-minute magazine show, Your City, instead of a full-fledged newscast. The Vancouver news operation, which had operated for 30 years under various owners and station identities, was not maintained aside from Breakfast Television. In the same month, Citytv Toronto became the first television station in Canada to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition.
The following year on June 8, the CRTC approved the CTV takeover of CHUM. However, the CRTC made the deal conditional on CTV divesting itself of Citytv, because there were already CTV owned-and-operated stations serving the same cities. Without the divestment, CTV would have exceeded the CRTC's concentration of media ownership limits. CTV announced on June 11, 2007, that it would retain the A-Channel stations, and sell the Citytv stations to Rogers Communications for $375 million. The transaction was approved by the CRTC on September 28 and was completed on October 31, 2007. On September 8, 2009, CITY Toronto moved to Yonge-Dundas Square at 33 Dundas Street East.
On December 6, 2010, CityNews Tonight Toronto anchor and continuity announcer Mark Dailey died after a long battle with cancer. The Citytv system began to phase in a modified branding in October 2012, with a new logo consisting only of the name "City", and some promotions using the verbal branding "City Television" instead of "Citytv". The change marked the first major alteration to the "Citytv" brand since its introduction in 1972. The network adopted the name "City" on December 31, 2012, during its New Year's Eve special. For the 2018–19 television season, the network reintroduced its original "Citytv" branding, and its social media accounts.
Rogers moved Citytv's Toronto operations to the Rogers Building at Bloor and Mount Pleasant in March 2025.