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''Canada Tonight'' is a
Canadian television Television in Canada officially began with the sign-on of the nation's first television stations in Montreal and Toronto in 1952. As with most media in Canada, the television industry, and the television programming available in that country, ...
newscast which aired on stations owned by Western International Communications (WIC) from 1993 to 2001. It was produced out of the studio of CHAN-TV (BCTV) in
Burnaby Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard In ...
,
British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
. There were two versions of the newscast; the one seen outside British Columbia was anchored by Tony Parsons, and the one seen in that province was anchored by Bill Good. The British Columbia version, seen only on BCTV, featured more stories related to
Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
and British Columbia, as well as local weather and some national news reports sourced from CTV, which WIC's other stations were unable to use.


History

As a charter CTV affiliate, British Columbia Television had carried the network's
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 ...
-based national newscast. However, the late night time slot for ''
CTV National News ''CTV National News'' is the flagship newscast of CTV News, the news division of the CTV Television Network, 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 Sc ...
'' 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 The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening News broadcasting#Television, television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featu ...
with
Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' from 1962 to 1981. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trust ...
''. 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 a joint production of BCTV and WIC's recently acquired CHCH in
Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. Hamilton has a 2021 Canadian census, population of 569,353 (2021), and its Census Metropolitan Area, census metropolitan area, which encompasses ...
, and was co-anchored by Tony Parsons and CHCH's Donna Skelly; it also aired on WIC's independent stations in
Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...
. However, as BCTV,
CITV CITV is a British children's morning programming block on ITV2 and formerly a free-to-air channel owned by ITV plc. CITV, then Children's ITV, launched on 3 January 1983 as a late afternoon programming block on the ITV network for children aged ...
in Edmonton and CHCH were all uplinked to satellite by Cancom (now Shaw Broadcast Services) for nationwide distribution, this meant many could watch the program via their cable companies (if they carried one of the three stations outside of their primary areas, as a
superstation ''Superstation'' (alternatively rendered as "super station" or informally as "SuperStation") is a term in North American broadcasting that has several meanings. Commonly, a "superstation" is a form of distant signal, a broadcast television sign ...
) or satellite dishes, thus expanding the newscast's reach. The program originally aired at 7 p.m. Eastern Time and ran for an hour. However, performance was poor in the Toronto market. Co-anchor Skelly did not even appear in the first broadcast until nearly 20 minutes in, while the two-city production was often affected by technical problems and satellite issues. On January 31, 1994, CHCH retooled its evening news lineup, which directly affected Canada Tonight; the program moved to 6:30 p.m. and was cut back to 30 minutes. Parsons became the sole anchor, while Skelly moved off the show and began anchoring ''The Evening News'', a half-hour provincial news program that preceded ''Canada Tonight'' on CHCH. As the newscast was produced out of BCTV, it utilized the newsroom set used by BCTV's local newscasts, although BCTV's logos and branding were typically concealed or replaced by ''Canada Tonight'' logos; a similar set was also built in Hamilton. Beginning in 1994, the national newscast began to use variants of BCTV's local news graphics, with the BCTV "flower" replaced by an abstract red maple leaf, typically placed in a white box. Beginning in 1996, the same music package heard on BCTV's local newscasts replaced the separate themes used by ''Canada Tonight''. Following
Canwest Global Canwest Global Communications Corporation, which operated under the corporate name Canwest, was a major Canadian media conglomerate based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with its head offices at Canwest Place (now called 201 Portage). It held radio, ...
's purchase of WIC in 2000, the
Global Television Network The Global Television Network (more commonly called Global, or occasionally Global TV) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English language, English-language terrestrial television, terrestrial television network. It is currently Canada's se ...
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 broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an network af ...
). In the interim, ''Canada Tonight'' replaced '' First National'', a regional newscast seen on Global stations in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba (CHCH had already dropped the show and replaced it with an hour-long local newscast in 1999); this also meant that BCTV's localized version replaced their CTV-sourced news stories with stories sourced from other Global stations. One unusual feature of the national version of the newscast which normally aired on Friday evenings was a segment called "Satellite Debris", presented by BCTV sports anchor Squire Barnes, which featured some of the week's humorous or less newsworthy news items. On the Friday before the NFL's
Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...
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 Simultaneous substitution (also known as simsubbing or signal substitution) is a practice mandated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) requiring pay television, broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs) in ...
regulations. (On BCTV, this segment aired as part of the 6:00 p.m. ''News Hour'', and indeed continues as part of the Friday newscast on Global BC.) ''Canada Tonight'' concluded its run on August 31, 2001, and was replaced on September 3, Global BC website. Accessed online March 21, 2011. by ''
Global National ''Global National'' is the English language flagship national newscast of Canada's Global Television Network. Editorial and production staff are based out of Global's national news centre at CHAN-DT, Global BC in Burnaby, British Columbia, with Da ...
'', the network's new flagship news program hosted by journalist Kevin Newman.


See also

* 2001 Vancouver TV realignment, which signalled the end of the newscast


References


Bibliography

* *{{Cite book , last = Gittins , first = Susan , title = CTV: The Television Wars , publisher = Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited , year = 1999 , pages
230, 296
, url = https://archive.org/details/ctvtelevisionwar0000gitt/page/230 , isbn = 0-7737-3125-3 1993 Canadian television series debuts 2001 Canadian television series endings Flagship evening news shows Global Television Network original programming Television shows filmed in Burnaby 1990s Canadian television news shows 2000s Canadian television news shows