If your numbers are right, what does it say that City and CBC are beating Global? Not sure I would have expected that. 

Maybe once, but after getting rid of their meteorologists (Michael Kuss, Harold Hosein and Adam Stiles) their weather predictions seem suspect to me. Only Natasha Ramsahai is left and the rest are simply billed as "Weather Specialists," a mostly meaningless title that means they really don't have any meteorological training. 

But you're right, for a while, they had the most credible forecasters. Those days are, you should pardon the expression, gone with the wind. 

RadioActive wrote:

If your numbers are right, what does it say that City and CBC are beating Global? Not sure I would have expected that. 

I thought that CityPulse/CityNews has had a pretty good history of success and relevance in Toronto, that's why I'm not surprised that they could possibly be #2 in the GTA. With CBC and all the different changes that the local TV news has gone through in the last 30 years, any momentum with viewership probably didn't last long.

As for Global, any one that I've asked who lives or has lived in Toronto has described them in general as "a joke". Again, this is anecdotal, and it would be nice to see actual A2+ or A18-49 numbers.  
 

paterson1 wrote:

I am a little suspect of the claim that City tv news beat CFTO at 6pm back in the mid 80's.   CFTO didn't even have a 6pm newscast until August 1984.  Up until this time World Beat News didn't begin until 6:30. 

I know you take great glee in arguing with me on just about everything and I enjoy our colloquies. But in this case, you're not correct and I'm speaking from firsthand knowledge. One of the TV stations I worked early on in my career doing fill-in work was City TV, and I know it to be 100% a fact that at least in one book, they did beat CFTO's World Beat News at 6. Although I can't tell you the exact year it happened, I can say it was when the station was still at 99 Queen St. E. with that infamous elevator. 

And I distinctly remember the champagne being brought out in the 5th floor newsroom when the book came out. 

The weird thing about it is that it really had nothing to do with the quality of either station's newscast. It was the lead-in, the morning version of The Price Is Right getting huge ratings as a lead in at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and viewers, busy readying supper, just not bothering to turn the channel when the game show's "Showcase" ended.

I suspect that's why they outbid City for the rights to the show at the time it came up for renewal. They didn't necessarily want to show it - they just didn't want the competition to have it. 

Turns out, they were right. As soon as the station lost the rights to the show, CFTO went right back up to the top and if memory serves, they never left. 

MJ Vancouver wrote:

I’ve seen Global Toronto’s newscasts on a few occasions when I’ve travelled back to Ontario.

Compared to what I’m used to with Global BC, I find it to be a lower quality newscast. A lot of Toronto’s stories are teasers where they’ll say they’ll “have more at 6”, and then when they do the follow-up it’s a lot of repetition from the first half hour. I also found it to have a lot more feel-good “fluff” stories, and a lot more time spent on weather than BC.

Have to say I understand your critique. I find Global Toronto hard to watch. For one thing, their noon show is shared in three markets - Toronto, Montreal and Peterborough. It means the weather is never entirely local and they carry local news from La Belle Province that means nothing to Toronto residents and Toronto (and Ontario) news that has little relevance to those in Quebec. You can't do local news without being intensely local and it shows. 

I also find their 6 o'clock local show to be weird. For one thing, unlike City and CTV, it's only half an hour. And that means it's larded with commercials. I switch around a lot during the 6 PM shows and I find that whenever I land on Global, it always seems to be in a spot break. Maybe it's just bad timing, but it happens so often, it can't be a coincidence. When it happens, I find I tune out and generally don't come back.

The other problem is that they'll throw to a national story on the 6, running a reporter SOT (sound on tape) and then 15 minutes later, the exact same story winds up on Global National. Hard to see why anyone would stay tuned to both shows when there's so much repitition. So maybe Global trailing the others isn't that surprising after all.  

RadioActive wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

I am a little suspect of the claim that City tv news beat CFTO at 6pm back in the mid 80's.   CFTO didn't even have a 6pm newscast until August 1984.  Up until this time World Beat News didn't begin until 6:30. 

I know you take great glee in arguing with me on just about everything and I enjoy our colloquies. But in this case, you're not correct and I'm speaking from firsthand knowledge. One of the TV stations I worked early on in my career doing fill-in work was City TV, and I know it to be 100% a fact that at least in one book, they did beat CFTO's World Beat News at 6. Although I can't tell you the exact year it happened, I can say it was when the station was still at 99 Queen St. E. with that infamous elevator. 

And I distinctly remember the champagne being brought out in the 5th floor newsroom when the book came out. 

The weird thing about it is that it really had nothing to do with the quality of either station's newscast. It was the lead-in, the morning version of The Price Is Right getting huge ratings as a lead in at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and viewers, busy readying supper, just not bothering to turn the channel when the game show's "Showcase" ended.

I suspect that's why they outbid City for the rights to the show at the time it came up for renewal. They didn't necessarily want to show it - they just didn't want the competition to have it. 

Turns out, they were right. As soon as the station lost the rights to the show, CFTO went right back up to the top and if memory serves, they never left. 

MJ Vancouver wrote:

I’ve seen Global Toronto’s newscasts on a few occasions when I’ve travelled back to Ontario.

Compared to what I’m used to with Global BC, I find it to be a lower quality newscast. A lot of Toronto’s stories are teasers where they’ll say they’ll “have more at 6”, and then when they do the follow-up it’s a lot of repetition from the first half hour. I also found it to have a lot more feel-good “fluff” stories, and a lot more time spent on weather than BC.

Have to say I understand your critique. I find Global Toronto hard to watch. For one thing, their noon show is shared in three markets - Toronto, Montreal and Peterborough. It means the weather is never entirely local and they carry local news from La Belle Province that means nothing to Toronto residents and Toronto (and Ontario) news that has little relevance to those in Quebec. You can't do local news without being intensely local and it shows. 

I also find their 6 o'clock local show to be weird. For one thing, unlike City and CTV, it's only half an hour. And that means it's larded with commercials. I switch around a lot during the 6 PM shows and I find that whenever I land on Global, it always seems to be in a spot break. Maybe it's just bad timing, but it happens so often, it can't be a coincidence. When it happens, I find I tune out and generally don't come back.

The other problem is that they'll throw to a national story on the 6, running a reporter SOT (sound on tape) and then 15 minutes later, the exact same story winds up on Global National. Hard to see why anyone would stay tuned to both shows when there's so much repitition. So maybe Global trailing the others isn't that surprising after all.  

The fact the noon newscast is shared between Global Toronto AND Montreal is outrageous. The random Montreal story in the middle of essentially the A-block of a Toronto newscast sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s probably better for Global in Montreal to simulcast the streaming news channel than just simulcast the Toronto news.

It’s strange why Global Toronto hasn’t learned anything from its more successful sister stations in Western Canada. Global BC is so dominant and puts out excellent newscasts, and Global Edmonton made the right moves over the years to chip away at CTV’s lead and becoming #1 there.

Global News at least in Southern Ontario seems almost like an after thought.  They have their moments and have broken the odd story but overall lacking in my opinion. Some do like their weather though and they still have two or three meteorologists.

Global also needs local news in Ottawa and a better base in that city.  They already have a studio, staff and a station.  Why they don't have a local newscast in Ottawa/Gatineau is beyond me.  Global will never be a national news force until they do this.

I have viewed their local casts in Edmonton and Vancouver, far superior to Toronto.  Guess if you put the effort in is how you become the most popular newscasts.  Global as a network is doing a lot of things right but news isn't one of them.  

I don't disagree with what you say, but if Toronto is the "big prize," then maybe they should stick to actually covering Toronto. As noted, their noon news spans three cities and two provinces and doesn't really serve any of them very well. A story out of Montreal about some local municipal issue there is of almost no relevance to viewers here. 

And outside of some idle curiosity, I doubt the people in Quebec care about Toronto's mayoral race. 

As for Peterborough, I'm not sure why it's even being shown there, those viewers get so little mention, even in the weather forecast. 

If Global really does want to make an impression news-wise, perhaps they should concentrate on the market(s) they were originally licenced to serve. Maybe they don't even really need a noon show and can put the extra cash it costs to produce it into their 6 PM cast here. This hybrid stuff, while probably saving them money, doesn't work. And I can't see a scenario where it ever will.

zed wrote:

paterson1 wrote:

Global also needs local news in Ottawa and a better base in that city.  They already have a studio, staff and a station.  Why they don't have a local newscast in Ottawa/Gatineau is beyond me.  Global will never be a national news force until they do this..  

Global was originally licenced as a Southern Ontario 'network' but that changed in the 90's (I believe) to become a Toronto television station that just happened to have transmitters across the province. They have no interest in providing local news in Ottawa, London or anywhere else for that matter. Toronto is the big prize.

No one in their right mind would establish a new 'brick and mortar' television station in any market in 2023. Viewership is declining because we can all get the latest news on our phones or laptops from a multitude of sources. It would make no business sense.
 

Global, as CKGN-TV (and later CIII-TV) was licensed to Paris, Ont. from its sign-on in 1974 until 2009. It was around the time of the CanWest bankruptcy that they applied to the CRTC for a change in the city of license. They also did this for Global Quebec, which was licensed to Quebec City and not Montreal.

However Global in Ontario did refocus their efforts on Toronto starting in about 1997-98, and gradually the local news stories from Ottawa, Sudbury, London, etc. were eliminated. Prior to that it was very much like BCTV in how it covered news - a lot of focus on provincial politics, and covering major stories all over the province, but sometimes not covering the major cities in a lot of depth. The formula seemed to work in BC but not in Ontario.

As for establishing a new television news operation, CBS Detroit is one example already mentioned; another recent one was NBC Boston. In that case NBC was faced with losing its affiliation with WHDH, but they chose to establish their own station with its own news department. No idea how it’s doing in the ratings. CBS has also been making efforts at new local news operations using resources from its Local News Lab in Texas; one example is the CBS-owned CW station in Seattle.

In the age of streaming, I see no reason why a major network couldn’t establish themselves in a new market, especially one over a million people. As someone else mentioned Ottawa is very poorly served by English media. It’s especially apparent during the NFL season; CJOH will have a football game while the CBC station has nothing, as CBC doesn’t do supper-hour news on Sundays. Like CBS Detroit, a theoretical Global Ottawa could be online-first, but with newscasts also provided on the traditional TV channel. Beyond Ottawa, Southwestern Ontario remains very poorly served by both Global and the CBC, though CBC Radio has vastly improved on this in the past decade.

There’s likely an element of inertia, “we’ve always done things this way” that prevents much change from happening, which happens in big business - especially when it comes to clinging to old business models. And there does seem to be a lot more hesitancy in Canada to stream local news online compared with the US.

Last edited by MJ Vancouver (May 2, 2023 11:31 am)

Hi RA,
Just to chime in here, a few memories of CityPulse.
We beat CFTO during the last year of being at 99 Queen St. E.  Yes there was bubbly stuff for all, thanks to the format of The Price is Right.    There was no "outbreak" before CityPulse at 6.   It ran, Price is Right Credits, Station ID (5sec), CityPulse...  you kept your audience, very simple.
Now on the "The party's over memo"   Thanks for posting RA!
The real story is that a few weeks after poor old Karen Reid had to personally hand each CityPulser this memo, Hurlbut asked about 15 at random staffers into his office (I was one of them) and asked how his memo ended up on the walls of CBC Toronto.  He was floored that this would happen, but what did he expect? 
I don't know about everyone else, but I thought we all busted our butts everyday to produce the best newscast going. Then CP24 came along and CityPulse all went downhill from there.
Thanks for sharing RA
 

ckg927 wrote:

I'm just curious: Where does CHCH in Hamilton fit into this conversation, or do very few people watch them any more-in The Hammer or otherwise?

They do fairly well. Not sure if ED1's list is more up to date, but last I saw (in 2016) things went: CFTO (300k), Global (125k), CITY (115k), CHCH (100k) CBLT (50k).