History
As a charter CTV affiliate, BCTV had carried the network's Toronto-based national newscast. However, the late night time slot for CTV National News was seen by BCTV as a competitive disadvantage against the early evening network newscasts on the U.S. television networks, in particular the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. After failing to convince CTV to introduce a suppertime national newscast, BCTV decided in the mid-1970s to instead retool its own early evening local newscast into the News Hour, presented by Tony Parsons. News Hour later became the most-watched newscast in the region, and remains so to this day.
Executives at BCTV also perceived a Toronto-bias in the production of CTV National News, and as such continued to push for a Vancouver-based national newscast. The station produced pilots for CTV's board in 1990; however, the proposal was turned down by the network. As a result, WIC decided in 1993 to launch its own early evening semi-national newscast, Canada Tonight. The newscast was produced out of BCTV's studio, and also aired on WIC's independent stations in Alberta and Hamilton, Ontario.
Following Canwest Global's purchase of WIC in 2000, the Global Television Network announced its plans to launch a new network newscast in September 2001, to be produced by a newly-established national news division based at BCTV (itself to become a Global owned-and-operated station). In the interim, Canada Tonight replaced First National, a regional newscast seen on Global stations in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba (by this point, CHCH-TV Hamilton had replaced Canada Tonight with an expanded local newscast).
One unusual feature of the newscast which normally aired on Friday evenings was a segment called "Satellite Debris" which featured some of the week's humorous or less newsworthy news items. On the Friday before the NFL's Super Bowl in the United States, it also previewed some of the advertisements that could not be seen in Canada through cable or satellite distribution due to simultaneous substitution regulations.
Canada Tonight concluded its run on August 31, 2001, and was replaced on September 3 by Global National, the network's new flagship news program hosted by journalist Kevin Newman.
Read more about this topic: Canada Tonight
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