Todd van der Heyden (born October 16, 1973) is a

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journalist and news anchor with

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 ...

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Education

Van der Heyden was born in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. He earned a bachelor's degree in

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

from

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

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 ...

. In 2004, he received a graduate diploma in

communication studies Communication studies (or communication science) is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in differ ...

from

Concordia University Concordia University () is a Public university, public English-language research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College (Montreal), Loyola College and Sir George Williams Universit ...

in Montreal.

Personal life

Van der Heyden is a native of Montreal. As a child, his family moved around a lot. He has three older sisters, Karen, Wendy, and Cindy. He also has a half-sister, Melanie. His father was born in

Eindhoven Eindhoven ( ; ) is a city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, located in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant, of which it is the largest municipality, and is also locat ...

, in

the Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, but immigrated to Canada at an early age. His mother was born in

, outside of Montreal. His parents got divorced in 1993. Todd is a massive fan of Elvis and has an extensive comic collection. Although van der Heyden had referenced being gay on air at several points in his career on local television in Montreal, he came out definitively on national television as a member of the

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

community during a live TV interview with

Clay Aiken Clayton Holmes Aiken (''né'' Grissom; born November 30, 1978) is an American singer, television personality, actor and political activist. Aiken finished second place on the second season of ''American Idol'' in 2003, and his debut album, '' Me ...

about the

Orlando nightclub shooting On , 2016, 29-year-old Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States before Orlando Police officers fatally shot him after a three-hour standoff. I ...

on 14 June 2016. Van der Heyden has been an active member of the community for decades and has volunteered, donated to and spoken on behalf of several LGBTQ organizations over the years.

Career

From 1997 to 2000, van der Heyden worked as a volunteer at

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's cable access channel

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, as well as freelanced at

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

in Montreal and the ''

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'' newspaper. Starting in 2000, he worked as news reporter at CFCF which was later rebranded as CTV Montreal. In February 2005, van der Heyden became the co-anchor of the 6pm weekend newscast and later the noon weekday newscast. In July 2008, he also became co-anchor of 6 o'clock newscast.Basem Boshra, "van der Heyden to co-anchor CTV Montreal evening news", ''

Montreal Gazette ''The Gazette'', also known as the ''Montreal Gazette'', is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper which is owned by Postmedia Network. It is published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the only English-language daily newspape ...

'', Final Edition, page D5, July 29, 2008 On December 2, 2011 it was announced that van der Heyden would be leaving CTV Montreal for a promotion, joining CTV News Channel, the network's 24-hour cable news channel based in Toronto. He has been an afternoon news anchor at CTV News Channel since January 2012. Van der Heyden is also the host of a weekly nationally syndicated radio show "Viewpoints with Todd van der Heyden" which airs on all Bell Media talk radio stations across Canada. The show initially launched in October 2011 on

CJAD CJAD (800 AM) is a commercial radio station operating in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The station has an English language news/talk radio format and identifies itself on-air as ''CJAD 800''. Owned and operated by Bell Media, it has a daytime power ...

Radio in Montreal. The show is also available in podcast form across various platform such as iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeart Radio etc. Van der Heyden also frequently acted as a fill-in anchor on CTV’s former morning show ''

Canada AM ''Canada AM'' is a Canadian morning television news show that aired on CTV from 1972 to 2016. Its final hosts were Beverly Thomson and Marci Ien, with Jeff Hutcheson presenting the weather forecast and sports. The program aired on weekdays, an ...

'' and occasionally on ''

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 ...

''.

Recognition

Van der Heyden has won three

RTNDA The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA, pronounced the same as " rotunda"), formerly the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), is a United States-based membership organization of radio, television, and online news dir ...

awards (Radio and Television News Directors Association) and one CAB award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Der Heyden, Todd Canadian television reporters and correspondents Canadian television news anchors Journalists from Montreal Carleton University alumni Concordia University alumni Living people Anglophone Quebec people 1973 births Canadian LGBTQ journalists CTV Television Network people 21st-century Canadian journalists Canadian LGBTQ broadcasters 21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people