CTV National News

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CTV National News is CTV's flagship newscast, which airs at 11:00pm local time on the main network across Canada, and live at 10:00pm on CTV Newsnet, CTV's 24-hour cable news channel. The current anchors are Lloyd Robertson on weekdays, and Sandie Rinaldo on weekends. The title CTV National News has been rarely used since the 1990s; weeknights, the program is now called CTV News with Lloyd Robertson and on the weekends, CTV News with Sandie Rinaldo. The title CTV National News, unofficially, has been re-introduced, mainly because CTV News has become the name of both the national and local news on CTV O&O stations. Rinaldo is also the program's main weekday substitute anchor; other substitute anchors include Tom Clark, Lisa LaFlamme, Dan Matheson, Ravi Baichwal and Scott Laurie.

Originally running only 20 minutes, the newscast was expanded to a full half-hour in the 1980s.

Various promotional ads have claimed it to be "Canada's #1 Newscast" (consistent with CTV's boasts of itself as being "Canada's #1 Network"); however in recent months, it has faced competition with Global National and The National in the ratings even though the three newscasts air at different times (Global National at 5:30pm, The National at 10:00 pm, and CTV National News at 11:00pm). CTV's claim to first place is based on a seven-day comparison of the newscasts' original broadcast-network airings. ^{[citation needed]}

CTV National News is not the same as CTV Evening News, a title that appears in some ratings reports and is sometimes erroneously associated with the Robertson newscast. The Evening News is in fact not a single newscast but the national aggregate of CTV's local 6:00 p.m. newscasts. (Local newscasts on all networks are treated similarly.)

1 Anchors
2 News bureaus
- 2.1 National
- 2.2 International
3 External links

[edit] Anchors

The program was launched in 1961 from the studios of CJOH in Ottawa. It was originally anchored by three hosts, Charles Lynch, Peter Stursberg and Peter Jennings.

The anchor team changed a number of times over the first few years, with Jennings as the sole constant. Other co-anchors included Baden Langton, Ab Douglas. Larry Henderson, the former host of the The National, was the shows international affairs analyst and weekend anchor for several years. Jennings left for ABC News in 1964, and his then-coanchor Harvey Kirck became the show's sole anchor.

Image:CTVNationalNews.png

In 1976, CTV National News returned to the coanchor format, hiring Lloyd Robertson as co-anchor with Kirck; Robertson just served as anchor of rival newscast The National on CBC. When Kirck retired in 1984, Robertson became sole anchor of the program. 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[1] before a network shakeup resulted in his moving to NBC.

Although there has been speculation since Morrison's departure about an heir presumptive to take over from Robertson when he eventually retires, at present no firm candidate has been identified. With the death of Peter Jennings in the summer of 2005, and the retirements of Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather in the preceding months, Robertson became the longest-serving, currently active network news host on English-language North American television. On October 18th, 2006, Lloyd Robertson celebrated his 30th year as a CTV National News anchor.

[edit] News bureaus

CTV News has bureaus across Canada and around the world, but many were closed to cut costs and replaced with reporters sent to locations from the existing bureaus

A list of current bureaus: