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- This article is about the Toronto station, which, in accordance with Wikipedia convention for articles on television stations, is titled with its official government-assigned call sign. For other stations (with different call signs) that use the "Citytv" brand, see Citytv.
Broadcasting for the first time on September 28, 1972, CITY was best known for its unconventional approach to news and local programming, an approach that continues today and has carried over to the other stations in the Citytv system. (See Citytv for more on these practices.)
Originally owned by Channel Seventy-Nine Ltd., a group which consisted of Phyllis Switzer, Moses Znaimer, Jerry Grafstein, Edgar Cowan and others, CITY was in debt by 1975. Multiple Access Ltd. (the owners of CFCF in Montreal, Quebec) purchased 45% of the station. Three years later, it sold its stake to CHUM. CITY was purchased outright by CHUM in 1981 with the sale of Moses Znaimer's interest in the station. Znaimer would remain 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.
History
CITY originally broadcast on the UHF band with a 31 kW signal on channel 79, since all the VHF licences in the Toronto area were taken. In 1976, the station began broadcasting at 208 kW from the CN Tower. The channel CITY broadcast on was changed from channel 79 to channel 57 on July 1, 1983, due to complaints that the station was interfering with mobile radio in the Toronto area, and so that channels 70 to 83 could be reclaimed for use by new AMPS mobile phones in the Americas. On September 1, 1986, a transmitter was put into operation in Woodstock, Ontario, and another was set up in Ottawa, Ontario in 1996.
CITY was also the first digital television station in Canada, using the ATSC DTV standard. It is still continuing its analogue broadcasts, and the CRTC has made digital service completely voluntary. The signal was first broadcast on January 16, 2003, and became a regular signal on March 3 of that same year.
Relocation and Expansion In 1987 CITY (along with all of the other CHUM-owned television stations) moved to its current headquarters at the CHUM-City Building, making it one of the most recognizable landmarks in the city.
For almost thirty years, CITY was the only Citytv station in Canada (therefore making Citytv and CITY interchangeable names for the station). In 2001, however, Citytv became a two-station system when CHUM purchased Vancouver's CKVU from Global. In 2005, three more Citytv stations were added in Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg after CHUM purchased the A-Channel television stations owned by Craig Media. On the day the three Prairie Citytv stations signed on, the flagship CityPulse newscast was rebranded CityNews.
On July 12, 2006, it was announced that Bell Globemedia would acquire CHUM Limited and its assets, including the Citytv family. *.
Some cablesystems in Canada, such as Videotron in Montreal, carry CITY as a superstation.
Remote Camera Use
In addition to the Freeway Management System - COMPASS and RESCU cameras, CITY TV operates Bell EYES cameras located at:
See also
Trivia
Comedian Dan Aykroyd moonlighted as CityTV's announcer from 1972 until 1975 while working at Toronto's Second City before he moved to New York City to join Saturday Night Live.
Former CBS News anchor and current CNN reporter John Roberts first got his start at CITY, where he was known on-air as 'J.D. Roberts'.
External link
Television stations in Toronto | CHUM Limited | Channel 57 TV stations in Canada
"CITY-TV"