CTV’s coverage of Live Earth: Concerts for a Climate in Crisis will bring together nearly 300 news, entertainment and sports staff from parent CTVglobemedia and former CHUM channels including MuchMusic, Star! and Bravo! for the 29-hour, seven-continent concert broadcast.

‘It’s historic for us because it’s going to be the first time that all the CTV and CHUM groups get to work together,’ CTV programming boss Susanne Boyce tells Playback Daily.

CGM has unveiled plans for the marathon broadcast beginning Friday at 9 p.m. that will see nine different concerts air live on each of its specialty channels. While MuchMoreMusic will feature Live Earth Sydney and London in their entirety, Bravo! will carry the Hamburg concert, with Star! airing Rio de Janeiro and MuchVibe covering off on Johannesburg.

‘It allows the viewer to customize,’ says Boyce. ‘We will be live wherever [Live Earth] is happening in the world, so viewers can see the whole concert or watch in chunks,’ she explains, noting that the main CTV channel will feature highlights of all the concerts, depending on the acts.

CGM is also putting the historic former CHUM building in downtown Toronto to use for the event, where anchors including Canada AM‘s Seamus O’Regan and Marci Ien, MTV’s Daryn Jones and MuchMusic’s Hannah Simone will be based.

CTV’s broadcast of the Live 8 concert event in July 2005 reached 10.5 million viewers, one of its largest audience reaches ever for a single program.