MCTV

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

The MCTV stations are:

All four stations refer to themselves on air as MCTV, not by their CXXX call letters.

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 and CHRO in Pembroke. 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 was acquired by Baton Broadcasting in 1990. Baton also acquired the Huron Broadcasting twinstick in Sault Ste. Marie the same year, and converted those stations to the MCTV branding. (The Sault stations were not owned by MCTV prior to Baton's purchase of the two station groups.)

Baton eventually became the sole corporate proprietor of CTV, and sold CHRO to CHUM Limited in 1998.

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.

Master control for the MCTV stations is now operated at CTV facilities in Toronto.

Slogans

2001 - News for the North

External link

http://www.mctv.ca/