Programming
The network's programming consists mainly of hit American series (such as The Amazing Race, The Big Bang Theory, Blue Bloods, Castle, CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, The Mentalist, Unforgettable and The X Factor), but it has also had success with Canadian-made shows such as Due South, Power Play, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Corner Gas, Instant Star, The Eleventh Hour, Flashpoint, The Listener and Canadian Idol. CTV also regularly produces and airs Canadian-made television movies, often based on stories from Canadian news or Canadian history, under the banners CTV Signature Series or CTV Movie.
News programming consists of the nightly CTV National News, morning program Canada AM, local newscasts branded as CTV News, and newsmagazines W-Five and Question Period, which interviews politicians and recaps political events during the week.
As well, in recent years, CTV has purchased Canadian broadcast rights to a number of American cable series, such as The Sopranos, Nip/Tuck, Punk'd, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and The Osbournes. In many cases, CTV has been one of the few conventional broadcast networks in the world to air these series in prime time, which has attracted some controversy from Canadian media watchdogs and parents groups who object to the profanity, violence and sexual content of Nip/Tuck, The Sopranos and The Osbournes — which, unlike originating broadcaster MTV, CTV aired uncensored. It has broadcast MTV programming live, starting with the MTV's New Year of Music special during New Year's 2005/2006.
In late 2003, CTV started broadcasting select American programmes in 16:9 (widescreen) HDTV. It later began airing Canadian programs in this format, such as Degrassi. Currently only CFTO and CIVT have dedicated HDTV feeds (sometimes marketed as CTV HD East and West respectively), but both are available nationally via cable and satellite, and do not differ otherwise from their analog counterparts.
In early 2005, CTV was part of the consortium that won the Canadian broadcast rights to Canada's Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and the London 2012 Summer Olympics. CBC had consistently won Olympic broadcast rights from the 1996 Summer Olympics through to the 2008 Summer Olympics. CTV and V (formerly TQS) were the primary broadcasters, with TSN, RDS and Sportsnet providing supplementary coverage. CTV has promised to broadcast 22 hours per day during the 2012 Olympics; regular CTV programming is expected to be reallocated to CTV's secondary conventional network CTV Two during the Olympics.
On July 2, 2005, CTV broadcast 20 hours of the Live 8 concerts, which was watched by over 10.5 million people — nearly one-third the country's population — at some point during the day; however, the average audience was much lower. According to at least one source, it was the most-watched program by this standard in Canadian history.
On May 22, 2007, it was announced that CTV had acquired the broadcast rights to the National Football League early-afternoon Sunday games, the full NFL playoffs, and the Super Bowl, starting with the 2007 NFL season, effectively ending a lengthy association between the NFL and Global. TSN, a sports channel co-owned with CTV, airs prime-time NFL games and produces the CTV broadcasts in tandem with CBS and Fox.
On June 27, 2007, CTV and The Comedy Network gained exclusive Canadian rights to the entire Comedy Central library of past and current programs on all electronic platforms, under a multi-year agreement with Viacom, expanding on past programming agreements between the two channels. Canadian users attempting to visit Comedy Central websites will be redirected to TCN's website, and vice versa for American users. The Canadian channel will keep its own brand name, but the agreement is otherwise very similar to the earlier CTV/Viacom deal for MTV Canada.
On September 10, 2010, Bell Canada Enterprises announced it would purchase the remaining shares of CTVglobemedia for $1.3 billion (CAD). On April 1, 2011, CTVglobemedia was officially renamed Bell Media.
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Famous quotes containing the word programming:
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—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)