History
The newscast was broadcast in Toronto as CityPulse as a pilot episode on September 28, 1975, and as a second pilot episode on September 12, 1976. The first regular episode of CityPulse aired on September 12, 1977. CITY-TV's newscasts aired under the CityPulse title for the final time on August 1, 2005, and were rebranded as CityNews the following day. While the station claims that it was the first news show to abandon the traditional anchor desk, CBS News in the United States had done this as early as the 1950s under Edward R. Murrow. Its main innovation in television news was to have its reporters play a more participatory role in their stories. Elements of it were also taken from then-sister station ATV in the Maritimes, whose Live at 5 newscast, launched in 1982, had lead anchor Dave Wright roaming around the ATV newsroom and talking with the reporters.
By the mid-1980s, the newscast's style, pioneered by Moses Znaimer, was promoted as a "format" for local news shows to copy around North America. The show has been duplicated by other television stations owned by CHUM Limited and its format has been licensed to several television stations around the world, such as Citytv Barcelona and Citytv Bogotá. Other attempts to clone the format with regional changes have also been attempted; notably, two American attempts at a CityPulse-style newscast debuted within months of each other in 1993: KCOP-TV in Los Angeles with 13 Real News, and KIRO-TV in Seattle with what was dubbed "News Outside the Box" (the latter station attempted to leverage its then-sister radio stations as well). Both attempts failed and by 1994 both stations had reverted to "traditional" newscasts.
Until 1987, the anchors on CityPulse sat behind an anchor desk in a dark studio with two orange-red-black striped beams and a television set between the two anchors. CityPulse at Six was anchored by Gord Martineau and Dini Petty for most of the years from 1980 to 1987. Weather presenters during that era included CHUM Radio veteran Jay Nelson, Brian Hill, Greg Rist, and David Onley. Sports anchors included Jim McKenny, Russ Salzberg, John Saunders, Debbie Van Kiekebelt, and Ann Rohmer.
CityPulse Tonight, known as CityPulse News at 10 prior to 1981, was anchored by Bill Cameron, later by Gord Martineau, and then Anne Mroczkowski. In 1987, Mroczkowski moved to the supper-hour show to co-anchor with Martineau. J.D. (John) Roberts began his news anchoring career as anchor of CityPulse Tonight after several years as an entertainment reporter and MuchMusic video jockey.
On May 4, 1987, CityPulse moved into a newsroom set at 299 Queen Street West in Toronto along with the other station operations, from 99 Queen Street East. After the move, CityPulse began to move the anchors away from a central desk, positioning them around the newsroom (such as the assignment desk, equipped with police radios, banks of monitors, and perhaps the most unique feature, a map of Toronto with blinking lights indicating major highways, positioned behind a large glass wall, allowing the anchors to draw on the glass with markers to indicate the locations of stories and incidents), or walking through the newsroom.
From 1987 to 1989, Dini Petty anchored CityWide at 5:30 pm.
Hourly news update segments, akin to the "24-Hour News Source" format popular in the US at the time, were introduced in the early 1990s, initially to cover the Gulf War (known as Gulfwatch). The updates were refined into a regular feature after the end of the war. These were branded as CityPulse (Overnight) NewsFlashes, for shorter updates (typically a shot of the darkened newsroom, followed by shots of area traffic cameras; a ticker would display one or two headlines, sports scores, a weather forecast, and/or the time of the next update; the sounds of the newsroom and/or a police scanner would be heard underneath), or as simply CityPulse Updates, for longer updates anchored by a CityPulse reporter (often Kevin Frankish) from the assignment desk, who, in a unique twist, would operate the camera themselves via a control device. From 1998 until the 2000s, CITY produced CityLive simulcasted with its new news channel CablePulse24.
By March 2008, CityNews Toronto was struggling in the ratings, coming in third (with an average of 100,000 viewers) after CTV (326,000 viewers) and Global (126,000). On January 21, 2008, CityLive was relaunched as CityNews at 5, drawing a scant 1% share of the Toronto market at 5 p.m.[5]
In July 2008, Rogers filed an application with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to launch a separate 24-hour news station to be affiliated with Citytv Toronto, and to be known as CityNews (Toronto). The application was approved on December 10, 2008.[6] The new station was in direct competition with CP24 which was launched on October 3, 2011, as CityNews Channel.[7]
In December 2008, Citytv laid off the entire CityNews Entertainment unit. Entertainment reporters Larysa Harapyn and Liz West were released, and entertainment stories were then read by the anchors.
In September 2009, Citytv moved into its now former newsroom at 33 Dundas Street East (Yonge-Dundas Square, now Sankofa Square) in Downtown Toronto.
On January 19, 2010, CityNews at Noon, CityOnline and CityNews at Five were cancelled as part of layoffs and restructuring within the Citytv stations. Many long-time CityNews on-air personalities, including Anne Mroczkowski and Laura DiBattista, were let go.
Citytv Toronto reinstated the 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts on Saturday and Sunday evenings on March 5, 2011, with Pam Seatle anchoring the 6 p.m. newscast, and Melanie Ng anchoring at 11 p.m. On September 5, 2011, Citytv Toronto also reinstated CityNews at Five with anchors Francis D'Souza, Tom Hayes, and Avery Haines. The following day on September 6, 2011, Breakfast Television on all five of Citytv's owned-and-operated stations expanded to three-and-a-half hours, from 5:30-9 a.m. Avery Haines then left CityNews at Five to start a segment called "The Inside Story" that features on Tuesdays and Thursdays on CityNews at Six.
On August 13, 2012, CITY-TV expanded its nightly 11 p.m. newscast, CityNews Tonight, from 30 minutes to one hour.[8]
In 2015, the station changed the format of its evening newscasts, removing the in-studio anchor and having all stories presented by videojournalists on the field. The reduced cost format is designed to appeal to younger viewers with a more "raw" presentation, and appeal to increased trust in the reporters and their journalism.[9]
In 2024, Citytv changed its format from being anchorless with an in studio presenter opening the newscast alongside delivering many of the stories standing in their newsroom, to an in studio anchor sitting down at a desk to present the news for the first time since 1987. With the format change, Citytv announced Cynthia Mulligan as their new Chief Correspondent and Anchor for CityNews at 5 and CityNews at 6 with other reporters hosting CityNews Tonight and CityNews Weekend.[10]
On March 15, 2025, Citytv moved from their now former building at 33 Dundas Street East to the Rogers Toronto campus at 333 Bloor Street East joining other Rogers Sports and Media television and radio stations such as 680 NewsRadio. Their last newscast at 33 Dundas Street East was on March 14, 2025 with Breakfast Television making the move as well.[11]
CityNews on CP24
From its launch in 1998 until 2008, CityNews and local cable news channel, CP24 were a combined operation sharing the same newsroom and studio space at 299 Queen Street West. CP24 simulcasted Citytv news programs such as Breakfast Television and CityNews. CP24 also reran most CityNews programming immediately after it was done airing live. At that time, CP24 was jointly owned by CHUM Limited and Sun Media, who owned the channel until 2004.
In July 2006, Bell Globemedia (later CTVglobemedia and now Bell Media) announced a bid to purchase Citytv/CP24's parent company, CHUM Limited. A year later, the CRTC approved the sale on the condition that the Citytv stations be sold. Shortly after, the sale of Citytv stations to Rogers Communications was finalized.
For a short period, things remained the same; Citytv anchors continued to anchor and contribute to CP24 and shows were simulcast between the two channels until CTV/Rogers announced the restructuring of its employees between to two channels beginning in November 2007, such as the hiring of new CP24-only and CityNews-only personalities.
In November 2008, CP24 moved most of its operations from its original newsroom, shared with Citytv, to a new state-of-the-art newsroom on the second floor with windows facing Queen Street West and at the same time CP24 unveiled a new look to its on-screen format. CP24 continued to simulcast CityNews programming up until December 10, 2008, when CTV pulled almost all Citytv news programming with the exception of Breakfast Television. That night, CTV News at Six replaced CityNews at Six, which had remained in place since the channel began broadcasting in 1998. Critics had speculated that the latter change was due to the CRTC's approval of Citytv Toronto planning on launching CityNews Channel.
