CTV Northern Ontario

MCTV is a system of four television stations in Northern Ontario, Canada, owned by the CTV Television Network.

The MCTV stations are:

All four stations refer to themselves on air as MCTV, not by their call letters. Station information and history is discussed on each station's own page.

Mid-Canada Television, or MCTV, was created in 1980 when Cambrian Broadcasting, which owned the CTV affiliates in Sudbury, North Bay and Timmins, merged with J. Conrad Lavigne's CBC affiliates (CKNC in Sudbury, CHNB in North Bay, CFCL in Timmins and CHRO in Pembroke.) This twinstick structure was permitted by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission as both companies were in a financial crisis brought on by competing for advertising dollars in small television markets.

CHBX and its CBC counterpart in Sault Ste. Marie, CJIC, were owned by Huron Broadcasting, and remained under different ownership and branding until 1990.

MCTV became a division of Northern Cable, the region's cable television provider, and the station owners became shareholders in Northern. In 1986, MCTV also acquired the Mid-Canada Radio Network of stations.

In 1990, Northern Cable began divesting itself of its media properties. Pelmorex purchased Mid-Canada Radio, and Baton Broadcasting acquired MCTV. Baton also purchased Huron Broadcasting in 1990, and converted those stations to the MCTV branding. Finally, Northern Cable itself was purchased by CFCF's cable television division in 1991.

Baton eventually became the sole corporate proprietor of CTV, and sold CHRO to CHUM Limited in 1998.

Baton retained the CBC twinsticks until 2002. In that year they were sold to the CBC, which converted them to retransmitters of CBLT, Toronto's CBC-owned station. All four stations surrendered their old call letters.

In the same year, CTV merged the news production facilities of the MCTV stations into a single regional newscast, with only short inserts for each city's local coverage. The regional newscast is produced at CICI. This created extensive controversy, with many public interest groups across Canada raising concerns about the disappearance of local news coverage in small markets.

Many organizations in Sault Ste. Marie, North Bay and Timmins began to call for a boycott of MCTV news, and local public interest groups have attempted to create new alternative sources for local news.

In 2003, MCTV's master control was transferred to CTV facilities in Toronto.

Slogans

Since 2000 - News for the North

External link

MCTV