Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

MCTV

MCTV is a system of four television stations in Northern Ontario, Canada, affiliated with the CTV Television Network.

The MCTV stations are:

MCTV was created in 1980 when Cambrian Broadcasting, which owned the CTV affiliates in Sudbury, North Bay and Timmins, merged with Mid-Canada Television, which owned the CBC affiliates in the same cities. This twinstick structure was permitted by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission because these were small markets, unable to support two commercial stations competing for advertising dollars.

MCTV later acquired Huron Broadcasting, the CTV/CBC twinstick in Sault Ste. Marie, and was in turn acquired by Baton Broadcasting in 1990. Baton eventually became the sole corporate proprietor of CTV.

MCTV's CBC-affiliated stations were sold in 2002 to the CBC, which converted them to retransmitters of Toronto's CBC-owned station.

In the same year, CTV merged the news production facilities of the four stations into a single regional newscast, with only short inserts for each city's local coverage. The regional newscast is produced at the station in Greater Sudbury. This created extensive controversy, with many public interest groups across Canada raising concerns about the disappearance of local news coverage in small markets.