CIII-DT - News Operation

News Operation

CIII-DT currently produces a total of 28 hours of local newscasts each week (with five hours on weekdays and 1½ hours on weekends).

Early on, its flagship news program Global News was developed under the guidance of Bill Cunningham, a CBC News veteran, and in the beginning it was anchored by Peter Trueman in Toronto and Peter Desbarats in Ottawa. In the early years it was one of the most successful and important programs the station had. Peter Trueman has noted in his memoir that the program was groundbreaking: "Our newsroom-studio combination ... served as a model for the new CHAN-TV facilities in Vancouver, and it is currently the inspiration for Ted Turner's new Cablenews operation in Atlanta". The CBC also looked to it for inspiration when it changed its national news format in the early 1980s. The program also pioneered the use of "regional correspondents", usually print or radio journalists, who would regularly advise the station about stories in their part of Ontario. This allowed field producers and a Global crew to target key stories of the day. "This is the main reason that much of Global's ex-urban coverage has been so effective", Trueman wrote in 1979.

During the 1980s, Global greatly expanded its news operation, with an hour-and-a-half of news starting at 5:30 p.m., plus news at noon and at 11 p.m. By the end of the 1980s, the noon news was simply called News at Noon, the 5:30 news was called First News, the 6:00 news was called The Six O'Clock Report, and the 11:00 news was called The World Tonight. Trueman left in 1988. Other anchors over the years have included Mike Anscombe, Beverly Thomson, John Dawe, Jane Gilbert, Peter Kent, Loretta Sullivan, Bob McAdorey, Thalia Assuras, and Anne-Marie Mediwake.

In keeping with the avoidance of regional branding noted above, CIII used "Global News", as opposed to a regional name such as "Global Ontario", as its main news brand. In the fall of 2009, however, for news programming, it began using "Global Toronto", since its newscasts focus primarily on that city. Individual newscasts are titled News Hour, News Final, etc. Global Toronto doesn't have its own entertainment or sports reporters. Entertainment news is provided by Entertainment Tonight Canada and sports news is provided by the all sports channel The Score Television Network.

From 1994 to 2001, CIII also produced First National, which was anchored by Peter Kent and seen at 6:30 p.m. weeknights. In 2001, the program was replaced by Canada Tonight, which in turn was replaced that fall with Global National, anchored by Kevin Newman, it originated from Global BC in Vancouver before moving to a dedicated studio in Ottawa in February 2008. From February to August 2009, CIII simulcast CHCH-TV's Morning Live, originating in Hamilton, Ont., from 7:00 AM to 9:00 a.m. CIII previously produced its own morning show called Global News Morning, but dropped it after low ratings and as a cost-cutting measure. The Noon News Hour was cancelled as well. The CHCH simulcast was later dropped after Canwest sold the Hamilton station to Channel Zero, with CIII airing second-run lifestyle programming in the morning timeslot, as well as reruns the previous night's News Hour Final.

On October 11, 2011 CIII-TV launched a three-hour morning newscast titled The Morning Show. Hosted by Liza Fromer and Dave Gerry (both former hosts of Citytv's Breakfast Television programme in Toronto and Vancouver, respectively), production of the show takes place in a new storefront studio at Shaw Media's Bloor Street building in Downtown Toronto; Kris Reyes serves as the news anchor of the show, and Daru Dhillon provides weather forecasts. The new programme runs from 6 to 9 a.m. ET. The announcement also coincided with the announcements of new local morning shows for other Global stations across Canada. The station also moved its early-evening newscast, News Hour, a half-hour earlier to 5:30 p.m. to coincide with a shift of Global National to the 6:30 p.m. slot, joining Montreal's CKMI-DT and Halifax's CIHF-DT as the only Global stations to carry the network's national newscast in that timeslot.

On August 27, 2012, Global Toronto launched a half-hour midday newscast on weekdays at noon, marking the return of a noon newscast to CIII since 2009. Unlike the existing lunch hour newscasts carried on Global's sister stations, the newscast will air for 30 minutes instead of one hour; the addition is part of an expansion of local news programming on Global owned-and-operated stations across Canada.