''CTV National News'' is the flagship newscast of

CTV News CTV News is the news division of the CTV Television Network in Canada. The name ''CTV News'' is also applied as the title of local and regional newscasts on the network's owned-and-operated stations (O&Os), which are closely tied to the nationa ...

, the news division of the

CTV Television Network The CTV Television Network, commonly known as CTV, is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television network. Launched in 1961 and acquired by BCE Inc. in 2000, CTV is Canada's largest privately owned List of Canadian ...

, which airs at 11:00 pm local time on the CTV stations across Canada, and is produced from CTV's facilities at 9 Channel Nine Court in

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Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

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. It also airs on CTV News Channel, CTV's 24-hour cable news television channel, live at 10:00 pm Eastern—or 11:00

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, when the newscast begins its nightly run across the network—with hourly repeats until 2:00 am Eastern (11:00 pm

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). The previous day's newscast can be seen on the Internet. The newscast has been presented by Omar Sachedina since September 5, 2022, who succeeded longtime anchor Lisa LaFlamme.Connie Thiessen
"Bell Media to launch third-party newsroom investigation"
. ''Broadcast Dialogue'', August 19, 2022. Sandie Rinaldo, the longtime weekend anchor, moved in November 2023 to a new early 5:30 p.m. weekday edition that launched on November 13; she was succeeded as weekend anchor by Heather Butts. LaFlamme succeeded veteran anchor Lloyd Robertson during the second half of 2011, following Robertson's retirement."LaFlamme to replace Robertson as CTV news anchor"
. ''

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'', July 9, 2010. Substitute anchors include Butts (for weekday broadcasts), Anne-Marie Mediwake, Todd van der Heyden, Joy Malbon,

Vassy Kapelos Vassiliki "Vassy" Kapelos (; born May 6, 1981) is a Canadian political journalist, currently serving as the chief political correspondent for CTV News. She formerly was the host of ''Power & Politics'' on CBC News Network from 2018 to 2022. She ...

, John Vennavally-Rao, Heather Wright, Merella Fernandez and Jon Erlichman. The title ''CTV National News'' was rarely used in the 1990s and early 2000s; weeknights, the program was called ''CTV News with Lloyd Robertson'' and on the weekends, ''CTV News with Sandie Rinaldo''. The title ''CTV National News'' was reintroduced in 2008, because ''CTV News'' had become the name of both the national and local news on CTV owned-and-operated (O&O) stations, although the banner continues to bear the title ''CTV News''. The newscast started as a 15-minute program and then ran for 20 minutes from 1963 until it was expanded to a half-hour on September 5, 1988. From 1962 to 1992, the newscast ran a perennial second in national news ratings to

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV, or simply CBC) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting, p ...

's '' The National''. In 1992, its ratings jumped significantly after the CBC's unsuccessful relaunching of its newscast as '' Prime Time News''. ''CTV National News'' became the top-rated newscast for the first time in its history. Stories from local stations that have national importance are taken from the local station, and a 'national reporter' re-does the story, often from a location hundreds or even thousands of miles from the location of the story. The national reporter always mentions their name and location where they are based at the end of the story, even though that location is often different from the location of the story. Until September 1998, ''CTV National News'' aired at midnight in the Maritime provinces. This was because ''CTV National News'' only produced one edition for the entire network, which aired live at 11:00 pm EST. When CTV Atlantic was purchased by Baton Broadcasting in 1997, one of the improvements was for CTV News to produce a second edition of the national newscast that would air in the Atlantic time zone at 11:00 pm. ''CTV National News'' moved to its new time in September 1998. ''CTV National News'' is not the same as ''CTV Evening News'', a title that appears in some national ratings reports and is sometimes erroneously associated with the 11:00 p.m. newscast. The ''Evening News'' is not a single newscast but the national aggregate of CTV O&Os' local 6:00 p.m. newscasts. (All networks have their O&Os' local newscasts aggregated for national ratings purposes.)

Anchors

The program was launched as ''CTV World News'' on September 24th 1962 as a fifteen-minute program, scheduled at 10:30pm, from the studios of CJOH in

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

. It was presented by two anchors: Baden Langton and Ab Douglas.

Peter Jennings Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings (July 29, 1938August 7, 2005) was a Canadian-American television journalist. He was best known for serving as the sole anchor of ''ABC World News Tonight'' from 1983 until his death from lung cancer in 200 ...

became a co-anchor in 1963 and remained with the newscast until 1964, when he joined

ABC News ABC News most commonly refers to: * ABC News (Australia), a national news service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation * ABC News (United States), a news-gathering and broadcasting division of the American Broadcasting Company ABC News may a ...

, where he would become a long-time foreign correspondent and news anchor. Larry Henderson, the former host of ''The National'' was CTV's international affairs analyst and weekend anchor for several years. In the 1962–63 season, struggling to compete with CBC's more established '' CBC National News'', CTV scheduled its newscast for 10:30, scheduling a

variety show Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a comp� ...

, '' Network'', for 10:45 p.m. The experiment lasted one season. In 1963, the program moved to 11 p.m. and was expanded to 20 minutes. Langton joined ABC News in the United States in 1964, first with ABC Radio in New York and then in

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

as White House correspondent for ABC News on both radio and television. Jennings soon followed him, joining ABC television's '' ABC Evening Report'' later that year, and becoming anchor in 1965. Harvey Kirck, Jennings' co-anchor since Langton's departure, became the newscast's sole anchor. In 1976, ''CTV National News'' scored a major coup by hiring Lloyd Robertson, anchor of CBC's ''The National'', as co-anchor with Kirck. When Kirck retired in 1984, Robertson became sole weekday anchor of the program, a position he held until 2011. For a time in the late 1970s and again in the early 1990s, Keith Morrison acted as weekend and substitute anchor and was considered Robertson's likely successor before a network shakeup resulted in his moving to

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...

. Sandie Rinaldo served as weekend anchor from 1985 until her 2023 promotion to host the weeknight early edition, excluding a brief period from 1990 to 1991. With a total of 40 years on two networks, Robertson was the second-longest tenured news anchor on English-language North American television (network or local), behind Dave Ward, who was the top anchorman at KTRK-TV in

Houston, Texas Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

from 1967 to 2017. He was the longest-tenured network news anchor in North America, outlasting several long-standing anchors in the United States. On October 18, 2006, Robertson celebrated his 30th year as a CTV National News anchor. ( Jim Lehrer had presented '' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer'' since its inception in 1975, beating Robertson by almost a year, but he only presented as a sole anchor of the programme from 1995 until 2011.) On July 8, 2010, Robertson announced that he would retire on September 1, 2011—his 35th anniversary at CTV. The following day, CTV announced Lisa LaFlamme, the network's chief international correspondent and Robertson's backup anchor since 2003, had been named as Robertson's successor. LaFlamme formally took over the program on September 2, 2011. On August 15, 2022, it was announced by Bell Media and CTV that LaFlamme's contract was not being renewed by the network due to a "business decision" to take the newscast "in a different direction". Omar Sachedina assumed the role of chief news anchor and senior editor of ''CTV National News'', as of September 5, 2022. LaFlamme's departure from the newscast led to allegations that she was fired for having let her hair go grey during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. In particular, CTV News head Michael Melling faced scrutiny when it was revealed that he had asked in internal memos for an explanation of who had permitted LaFlamme to make that decision, and had sparred with LaFlamme over the costs involved in covering both the

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and the

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. CTV denied the allegations that LaFlamme's age or hair colour had entered into the decision,Connie Thiessen
"Bell SVP Karine Moses ‘sets the record straight’ on LaFlamme exit"
. ''Broadcast Dialogue'', August 18, 2022. and announced a workplace review.

Anchors

* Baden Langton (1962–1964) (co-anchor) * Ab Douglas (1962–1964) (co-anchor) *

(1963–1964) (co-anchor) * Harvey Kirck (1963–1984, chief anchor from 1964 to 1976, co-anchor 1963 to 1964 and 1976 to 1984) * Lloyd Robertson (1976–2011, co-anchor from 1976 to 1984, chief anchor from 1984 onward) * Sandie Rinaldo (1985–1989, 1991–2023, weekends; 2023–present, early evening edition) *Heather Butts (2023–present, Friday and weekends) * Keith Morrison (1992–1995) (fill-in) * Lisa LaFlamme (2011–2022) * Omar Sachedina (2022–present) (Monday-Thursday)

ImageSize = width:800 height:225 PlotArea = left:110 bottom:55 top:10 right:10 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:1961 till:2023 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Colors = id:1 value:red legend:Chief_Anchor id:2 value:orange legend:Co-anchor id:3 value:blue legend:Weekend_Anchor Legend = orientation:horizontal position:bottom ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:1961 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:5 start:1961 BarData = bar:Langton text:" Baden Langton" bar:Douglas text:" Ab Douglas" bar:Jennings text:"

" bar:Kirck text:" Harvey Kirck" bar:Robertson text:" Lloyd Robertson" bar:Rinaldo text:" Sandie Rinaldo" bar:Morrison text:" Keith Morrison" bar:LaFlamme text:" Lisa LaFlamme" bar:Sachedina text:" Omar Sachedina" PlotData = width:10 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4) bar:Langton from:1962 till:1964 color:2 bar:Douglas from:1962 till:1964 color:2 bar:Jennings from:1963 till:1964 color:2 bar:Kirck from:1963 till:1964 color:2 bar:Kirck from:1964 till:1976 color:1 bar:Kirck from:1976 till:1984 color:2 bar:Robertson from:1976 till:1984 color:2 bar:Robertson from:1984 till:2011 color:1 bar:Rinaldo from:1985 till:1990 color:3 bar:Rinaldo from:1991 till:end color:3 bar:Morrison from:1990 till:1991 color:3 bar:LaFlamme from:2011 till:2022 color:1 bar:Sachedina from:2022 till:end color:1

References

External links

CTV National News website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ctv National News CTV Television Network original programming 1961 Canadian television series debuts CTV News 1960s Canadian television news shows 1970s Canadian television news shows 1980s Canadian television news shows 1990s Canadian television news shows 2000s Canadian television news shows 2010s Canadian television news shows 2020s Canadian television news shows Television series by Bell Media Television shows filmed in Toronto Flagship evening news shows

Anchors

Anchors

See also

References

External links