CFTO-DT
CRTC | |
ERP | 10.2 kW |
---|---|
HAAT | 467.0 m (1,532 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 43°38′33″N 79°23′14″W / 43.64250°N 79.38722°W |
Translator(s) | see § Transmitters |
Links | |
Website | CTV Toronto |
CFTO-DT (channel 9) is a
History
The station first signed on the air at 10 p.m. on December 31, 1960; its first official day of programming was on January 1, 1961. The inaugural program broadcast on CFTO was a telethon for the Ontario Association for Community Living, hosted by broadcaster Joel Aldred,[1] complete with a fireworks ceremony.
The station was founded by Baton Aldred Rogers Broadcasting, a joint venture between Telegram Corporation (owned by the Bassett and Eaton families), Aldred-Rogers Broadcasting (owned by Joel Aldred and Ted Rogers), and Foster Hewitt Broadcasting, which owned radio station CKFH (1430 AM, now CJCL on 590 AM). The 'Baton' portion of the name was pronounced /ˌbætən/ (as in Baton Rouge, Louisiana), rather than the conducting tool's traditional pronunciation.
The station's first children's show, shown on weekday afternoons, was The Professor's Hideaway, starring Stan Francis.[2][3][4] American television network ABC held a minority share in the partnership, which it sold to each of the partners shortly before CFTO-TV went on the air. Ted Rogers' uncle J. Elsworth Rogers was a minority (and originally primary) owner of Western Ontario Broadcasting, Ltd., owners of CKLW-TV (now CBET) in Windsor, Ontario (which was mostly owned by RKO General). The station's original studio and transmitter facilities were located at 1550 McCowan Road, later renamed 9 Channel Nine Court.
In March 1961, Aldred sold his interest in the station, and on October 1 of that year, CFTO became a charter affiliate of CTV, as well as the network's flagship station. In 1970, Ted Rogers sold his interest in CFTO and the Bassett-Eaton group sold their interest in
When CTV's stations proposed to buy the network and run it as a
On January 27, 1998, the
Programming
As CFTO serves as CTV's flagship station, its schedule is virtually identical to the CTV network schedule. A largely identical schedule is used on the other CTV stations in
Other station productions
Under CTV's original cooperative structure, CFTO, through Baton's in-house production company Glen-Warren Productions, was one of the network's main contributors of Canadian programming, such as
For much of its history, CFTO's Channel Nine Court studios have also served as the home for network-produced programs such as CTV National News, Canada AM and W5. The studios are now also used by a number of CTV's specialty channels, for productions such as the cable news channel CTV News Channel, TSN's SportsCentre, and Discovery Channel's Daily Planet.
Over the years, the studio complex has also been rented out for third-party productions, such as the studio scenes in the 1976 film Network.[5] The Lotto 6/49 and Lotto Super 7 (now Lotto Max) drawings were also held at the CFTO studios until 2008. Since 2010, CFTO and CP24 have been the television broadcasters for the Toronto Santa Claus Parade.
News operation
CFTO-DT presently broadcasts 15+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 2+1⁄2 hours each weekday and 1+1⁄2 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). With the exception of its CP24 simulcasts, the station brands its newscasts as CTV News Toronto, in line with all of CTV's other owned-and-operated stations as well as the CTV 2 stations, using generic CTV News graphics. The station's flagship 6 p.m. newscast is the highest-rated local newscast in Canada.[6] Known beginning in the 1970s as World Beat News (for its early evening newscast), Noon Beat News (for its lunch hour newscast) and Night Beat News (for its late evening newscast), the station's newscasts were rebranded as CFTO News in early 1998, and as CTV News in 2005.
In December 2008, CP24, a 24-hour news channel which primarily focuses on Toronto, began airing a simulcast of CTV News at Six, displacing its simulcast of the 6 p.m. edition of
Starting in July 2017, CFTO began simulcasting CP24's Live at 5 and Live at 5:30 as part of an expansion of local news programming across Bell Media stations. Unlike CP24, these newscasts are broadcast in full screen without any information sidebars.
Notable current on-air staff
- Nathan Downer – weekday co-anchor, CTV News at Six
- Michelle Dubé – weekday co-anchor, CTV News at Six
Notable former on-air staff
- Christine Bentley – CTV News at Six anchor and reporter (retired)
- Dave Devall – weather specialist reporter (retired)
- Tom Gibney – CTV News at Six anchor (deceased)
- Gord Martineau – reporter (brief stint)
- Bernie McNamee – reporter (1985–1989), later with CBC Radio 1989–2015 (retired)
- Ken Shaw – weekday co-anchor, CTV News at Six and CTV News at Noon (2001–2020), special reporter (retired)
- Ali Velshi – reporter, now with MSNBC
Technical information
Subchannels
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
---|---|---|---|---|
9.1 | 1080i | 16:9 |
CFTO | Main CFTO-DT programming / CTV |
9.2 | 480i |
Analogue-to-digital conversion
The station began providing a digital signal on satellite on November 17, 2003, and on January 30, 2004, CFTO was granted an over-the-air digital television signal, transmitting on UHF channel 40 at an
Transmitters
Station | City of licence
|
Channel (RF / VC) |
ERP | HAAT
|
Transmitter coordinates |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
CFTO-DT-21 | Orillia | 21 ( UHF )21 |
207.6 kW[12] | 171.3 m (562 ft) | 44°52′4″N 79°35′41″W / 44.86778°N 79.59472°W |
CFTO-DT-54 | Peterborough | 35 (UHF) 54 |
38 kW | 176.3 m (578 ft) | 44°26′44″N 78°31′59″W / 44.44556°N 78.53306°W |
CFTO-TV-21 and a long list of CTV rebroadcasters nationwide were to shut down on or before August 31, 2009, as part of a political dispute with Canadian authorities on paid fee-for-carriage requirements for cable television operators.[13] A subsequent change in ownership assigned full control of CTVglobemedia to Bell Media; as of 2011, these transmitters continue to be licensed and remain in operation.[14] Just after midnight on June 23, 2019, the Orillia transmitter was converted to digital.
References
- ^ Joel Walkden Aldred
- ISBN 978-1-896943-44-2.
- ^ "Here's looking at you, Kiddo" Archived August 13, 2017, at the Wayback Machine. Showbiz, Bill Brioux, November 26, 2004
- ^ "Happy Homes for Adoptable Children". Broadcaster, April 25, 1963, page 90
- ^ "Filming Locations for Network (1976), in New York and Toronto".
- ^ "ABOUT US". CTV News Toronto. Retrieved October 18, 2015.
- ^ CP24 broadcasts Toronto's Number One Local 6pm Newscast
- ^ What Happened To CityNews On That Cable Channel? Archived December 14, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ RabbitEars TV Query for CFTO
- ^ Digital Television – Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA) Archived November 20, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Over-The-Air transmitter channel changes". CTV Television Network. Archived from the original on April 21, 2019. Retrieved April 21, 2019.
- ^ ota test
- ^ CTV list of transmitters to be shut down Archived December 24, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "CRTC renews licences of most English-language television services: New licence terms to bolster funding for original Canadian programs". Crtc.gc.ca. Archived from the original on October 5, 2012. Retrieved December 24, 2015.
External links
- CTV Toronto
- CFTO-DT at The History of Canadian Broadcasting by the Canadian Communications Foundation
- CFTO in the REC Canadian station database