CTV

CTV is an English-language Canadian commercial television network owned by media company Bell Media. It airs a mix of American TV shows and movies, along with some Canadian shows.

CTV began broadcasting on October 1, 1961. Its creation was the result of a decision made in 1958 by Canada's Progressive Conservative government at the time, led by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, to form a new Canadian broadcasting regulator, the Board of Broadcast Governors, to take over those duties from the state-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which had been both Canada's public broadcaster and broadcast regulator until then. The BBG was formed to answer demands by private broadcasters to allow alternate choices to CBC Television and Télévision de Radio-Canada, the CBC's respective English and French-language television units. When CTV first went on air, it originally consisted of eight affiliated stations in Vancouver (CHAN-TV), Calgary (CFCN-TV), Edmonton (CFRN-TV), Winnipeg (CJAY-TV, now CKY-TV), Toronto (CFTO-TV), Ottawa (CJOH-TV), Montreal (CFCF-TV) and Halifax (CJCH-TV). Of those eight stations, CFRN was originally a CBC affiliate while the others all began as independent stations before joining CTV.

Since CTV first went on the air, the number of its affiliated stations has grown to its current level of 22 stations, making it Canada's largest privately owned television network, as well as the largest and most-watched Canadian network based on size and audience reach. While all of those stations began under independent owners, most of those stations, except for two, are now owned by the network itself due to CFTO's then-parent company, Baton Broadcasting, buying up most of the CTV affiliates between the mid-1980s and 2001. Baton itself changed its corporate name to CTV Inc. in January 1998, giving it control of both the network and its owned-and-operated stations.

In addition to CTV itself, parent Bell Media also operates several CTV-branded media outlets, including the secondary TV system CTV 2 (consisting of stations in smaller cities adjacent to and targeting the major markets), themed cable channels CTV Drama Channel (formerly the Canadian version of American channel Bravo), CTV Sci-Fi Channel (formerly Space), CTV Comedy Channel (formerly the Comedy Network) and CTV Life Channel (formerly Gusto) and online video on demand services CTV Movies (devoted to feature films) and CTV Throwback (focused on classic TV shows).

Controversies

Once a bastion for fair reporting in its newscasts, CTV, like the rest of the mainstream media, has recently taken a turn toward the Left akin to the CBC and most of the American networks in its news reporting and has shown blatant liberal bias and dishonesty in certain reports it has filed. Rebel News head Ezra Levant has even said that like the rest of the liberal media the network has since joined, CTV reporters can no longer be trusted, and are now even hated by much of the public, because it cannot be determined if they are simply asking questions for their news reports or if they are willingly gathering intel to pass along to police forces.

• In one report in which former Rebel News reporter Faith Goldy was viciously attacked and assaulted by far-Left Antifa rioters who showed up to crash an anti-illegal immigration protest in Quebec at the Canada-United States border and fight with the protesters, CTV Montreal reporter Angela MacKenzie whitewashed the incident in her Twitter account by downplaying and minimizing Antifa's actions (including their calls to throw Goldy into moving traffic), calling them "counter-protestors" instead of the rioters and criminals they are (and even refused to identify them as Antifa) and used the leftist term "far-Right" (a smear term used by the Left to refer to conservatives) to refer to Goldy. MacKenzie's tweet drew immediate and heavy criticism against her on her Twitter account for her biased reporting and against CTV for selective editing of the video capturing the Antifa assault on Goldy.

• In a press conference with Liberal environment minister Catherine McKenna, CTV Ottawa reporter Mike Arsalides engaged in journalistic unprofessionalism by asking softball questions of McKenna while simultaneously belittling Rebel News reporter Keean Bexte, then was seen on camera putting on a smug and arrogant expression as he looked toward the Rebel News camera. Arsalides was also caught on camera interrupting and disrespecting Bexte when the latter tried asking tough questions of McKenna, following up on his disgraceful behavior after the conference by telling Bexte point-blank that "(he had) no credibility" and falsely calling Rebel News "fake news", then he started getting personal against Bexte by dragging Bexte's mother into his argument.

• On an episode of daytime talk show The Social (the Canadian equivalent of The View) in November 2019, Friday co-host and liberal elitist Jessica Allen engaged in racism, sexism and bigotry when, while trashing the sport of hockey, she accused it of being played by "white boys" (despite the fact that Allen is white herself) and falsely labeled long-time Hockey Night in Canada co-host and analyst Don Cherry a "bigot" and a "misogynist" during a discussion over the fallout of the firing of Cherry from that program by the CBC for making comments defending Canada's military veterans, which liberal pundits falsely claimed were "racist" and "anti-immigrant" but were, in fact, deliberately misinterpreted and twisted out of context by those same pundits. Allen was subsequently trashed on Twitter for her racist and anti-hockey comments (with a large number of posters calling for CTV to fire her from The Social) after she first tried to dismissively blame those who criticized her for her comments and she refused to take responsibility for them, then attempted to backpedal on the comments and offered a hollow, non-apology "apology" for them.

• CTV, along with other Canadian news outlets, showed an abbreviated clip of dashcam video of the arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations chief Allan Adam outside a casino in Fort McMurray, Alberta, which was intentionally presented out of context to make it appear as if the RCMP officers suddenly assaulted Adam just seconds after he got out of his truck, with one of the officers shown punching Adam in the face in what the networks were claiming was a "racist" incident to try to smear the RCMP. Independent journalist Spencer Fernando called CTV out for its dishonesty in presenting only the abbreviated video, which he accused the network of using in a calculated manner to deliberately stoke anger with viewers, insult their intelligence and divide them (though he did not excuse the actions of the officer who punched Adam in the face, stating that police officers have a responsibility that comes with their jobs). Following the criticism, CTV News producer Rosa Hwang deleted a tweet on her Twitter account that presented the video clip out of context, followed soon after by CTV presenting the full 12-minute video of the incident, which showed Adam acting in a belligerent and threatening manner toward the officers (who had originally arrived to speak to Adam about an expired license plate on his truck), refusing to obey orders and even assaulting one of the officers, all while apparently under the influence of alcohol, for the first few minutes before he was arrested, presenting a very different context to the incident as opposed to what CTV originally tried to present before it was called out.

• The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled that CTV had violated the council's code of ethics after a complainant pointed out that network reporter Joy Malbon had deliberately misrepresented the words of US President Donald Trump by claiming that Trump had said the coronavirus (specifically, COVID-19) was a "hoax" and that the network's newscasts, in doing so, displayed complete disdain for the President. In fact, Trump had never said that, but instead said that the Democrats' politicization of the outbreak was a hoax. While CTV subsequently admitted wrongdoing for the presentation of that report, it denied the complainant's accusation against it about having disdain for Trump. In response to CTV's denial, online conservative news site True North pointed out that the network, along with other Canadian liberal media outlets (particularly including the CBC), displayed journalistic unprofessionalism by blatantly fawning over the illegitimate installation of Joe Biden following the Democrat theft of the 2020 presidential election while obnoxiously ridiculing Trump.

• CTV Calgary reporter Kathy Le drew some criticism on Twitter for a biased report she gave about a rodeo that took place near the town of Bowden, Alberta, where she was critical of the rodeo being held, as well as its attendance figures (which also included no social distancing or face masks), in defiance of the CCP flu lockdown edicts of Alberta "conservative" premier Jason Kenney (despite recent reports revealing that lockdowns, face masks and social distancing do not work). One critic compared Le to similar types who informed Nazi authorities about Anne Frank and her family hiding out above her father's office in Amsterdam during World War II when criticizing Le for ratting out the rodeo attendees. Likewise, fellow CTV Calgary reporters Chris Epp and Timm Bruch drew criticism for their involvement in unjustly criticizing the rodeo; Epp was called out for snitching on rodeo attendees as Le did, while Burch was criticized for displaying hypocrisy in showing willingness to expose the identities of those who went to the rodeo, but complaining when he was filmed in turn by many of the rodeogoers in response.

• Calgary CTV station CFCN-DT came under fire for using a stock photo for a news segment on family planning when it was discovered that the photo they used featured Chris Watts, a convicted murderer who had killed his pregnant wife and two young daughters.

• CTV was criticized in its coverage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict when it elected to show war footage provided by the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion; it also previously falsely claimed the paramilitary organization as "far-Right" (even though, due to its embrace of Nazism, it is actually on the far-Left), but conveniently dropped that designation when it willingly began using Azov propaganda footage in its newscasts, implicitly admitting in doing so that Nazism is part of the Left.

CTV has also come under criticism as one of numerous Canadian media outlets, large and small, that took bribe money from Justin Trudeau (totaling nearly C$660 million) to cover for him in news reports (including asking him "softball" questions while whitewashing and ignoring the numerous scandals he has faced while in power) and spout the same fake news, lies and twisting of narratives already being spewed by the CBC. In an ironic recent turn of events, CTV became one of several media outlets that denounced Trudeau's invocation of the Emergencies Act on February 14, 2022 (and its ratification by a Liberal/NDP bloc via parliamentary vote one week later on February 21) and his lack of faith-motivated heavy-handed dealings with the anti-CCP flu mandate Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa before and after the vote; CTV News contributor Don Martin called the use of the Act to disproportionately and violently deal with the peaceful protesters "(a)n emergency about nothing" and predicted that Trudeau's time in office is running short due to the ensuing controversy, though Martin still saw fit to attack Conservative MPs who supported the protesters and to deny that Trudeau's jackboots had instigated violence against the protesters. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation launched a petition in February 2022 that called for an end to Trudeau's unethical use of taxpayer funds to bribe other media outlets (including CTV) to report favorably about the Trudeau regime and to lie about and smear the regime's opponents like the CBC does, as well as calling for the CBC to be defunded.

CTV affiliates

Owned by Bell Media

Station	City	First sign-on date	Notes
CIVT-DT	Vancouver, British Columbia	September 22, 1997	Replaced CHAN-DT as Vancouver's CTV affiliate when CHAN switched to the Global Television Network on September 1, 2001
CFCN-DT	Calgary, Alberta	September 9, 1960	Was Canada's first independent TV station prior to CTV signing on
CFRN-DT	Edmonton, Alberta	October 25, 1954	Was Edmonton's original CBC affiliate until October 1, 1961, when it switched to CTV after CBC-owned CBXT signed on
CFQC-DT	Saskatoon, Saskatchewan	December 5, 1954	Was Saskatoon's original CBC affiliate until 1969, then a dual CBC-CTV affiliate until CBC-owned CBKST went on the air on October 17, 1971
CIPA-TV	Prince Albert, Saskatchewan	January 12, 1987
CKCK-DT	Regina, Saskatchewan	July 28, 1954	Was Regina's original CBC affiliate until September 12, 1969, when it joined CTV after the CBC purchased original Regina CTV affiliate CHRE-TV and switched it to CBC with the new call sign CBKRT (now CBKT-DT)
CICC-TV	Yorkton, Saskatchewan	Fall 1971
CKY-DT	Winnipeg, Manitoba	November 12, 1960	Was originally called CJAY-TV until May 31, 1973
CHBX-TV	Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario	September 23, 1978	Was originally call CKCY-TV until 1986
CICI-TV	Greater Sudbury, Ontario	October 25, 1953	Was Sudbury's original CBC affiliate until October 3, 1971, when it switched to CTV when new CBC affiliate CKNC-TV signed on; was originally called CKSO-TV until 1980
CITO-TV	Timmins, Ontario	April 1, 1971	Began as CKSO-TV-2, a rebroadcaster of CKSO-TV in Sudbury; became a standalone station and changed to its current call sign in 1980
CKNY-TV	North Bay, Ontario	December 19, 1955	Was North Bay's original CBC affiliate until October 15, 1971, when it switched to CTV when new CBC affiliate CHNB-TV signed on; was originally called CKGN-TV until 1960, then CFCH-TV until 1970
CKCO-DT	Kitchener, Ontario	March 1, 1954	Was a CBC affiliate until 1964
CFTO-DT	Toronto, Ontario	December 31, 1960	Flagship station of CTV
CJOH-DT	Ottawa, Ontario	March 12, 1961
CFCF-DT	Montreal, Quebec	January 20, 1961
CKLT-DT	Saint John, New Brunswick	September 21, 1969
CKCW-DT	Moncton, New Brunswick	November 30, 1954	Was Moncton's original CBC affiliate until September 21, 1969, when it switched to CTV the same day Saint John CBC affiliate CHSJ-TV (now CBC-owned CBAT-DT) added a rebroadcaster in Moncton
CJCH-DT	Halifax, Nova Scotia	January 1, 1961
CJCB-TV	Sydney, Nova Scotia	October 9, 1954	Was Sydney's original CBC affiliate until September 26, 1972, when it switched to CTV when CBC-owned CBIT signed on

Independently owned

Station	City	First sign-on date	Notes
CITL-DT	Lloydminster, Alberta/Saskatchewan	July 28, 1976	Owned by Stingray Digital Group
CKPR-DT	Thunder Bay, Ontario	October 4, 1954	Owned by Dougall Media; was a CBC affiliate until September 1, 2014; was called CFPA-TV until July 20, 1957, then CFCJ-TV until 1967

External links

• CTV official website