Citytv punches far above its weight. That’s the consensus from some of Canada’s most prolific independent producers, even after five decades and counting.

“They’re not a huge channel. They have to be clever because they don’t have all the money in the world. … There are no huge teams of people,” says Christina Jennings, chairman and president of Shaftesbury, which saw its series Murdoch Mysteries run on Citytv for five seasons until it moved to CBC in 2013, and now has Hudson & Rex (pictured above) into its fifth season on the channel.

“Everything is pretty streamlined, pretty efficient. I’ve always admired them, right back from the Murdoch days [16 years ago]; there was this out-of-the-box thinking.”

Citytv hit the 50th anniversary of its very first broadcast on Sept. 28, 2022. Media executive Moses Znaimer launched the flagship channel in 1972 as Toronto’s first independent television station and made waves with its unconventional offerings – from maverick, in-depth local news, to the weekly FashionTelevision hosted by Jeanne Beker, to the street-level musings series Speakers Corner.

“From its earliest days, the newsroom at Citytv broke the mold,” says Dave Budge, VP of news and information at Rogers Sports & Media. “They pioneered the open newsroom set, created new approaches to shooting and storytelling, and broke ground on diversity. It’s been an honour to expand on those innovations with the no-anchor format, emphasis on mobile and video journalism, weaving Speakers Corner into our journalism, and a commitment to anti-racism.”

Znaimer (pictured right), who is now founder and CEO of ZoomerMedia, agrees that innovation was key to its success. The format of Speakers Corner worked so well, he’s doing it again today as VoxBox in Toronto’s trendy Liberty Village.

“Among the many innovative things that people remember most about my original Citytv is Speakers Corner, and despite all the recent developments in interactive digital tech and the many ways in which you can now do it yourself on mobile, there’s still something thrilling about speaking your mind for all to see at a place and in a booth designed for the purpose,” Znaimer tells Playback.

Znaimer also remembers Citytv’s first broadcast like it was yesterday: “Perhaps my sharpest, most poignant memory of Citytv is of the moment it went to air to zero audience. It was 7:30 p.m., Sept. 28, 1972, a day that marked the largest television audience recorded in Canadian history up to that time. Alas, all those viewers weren’t tuned into my upstart Channel 79 but, instead, were watching Team Canada’s historic seventh game victory over the Soviets, topped by Paul Henderson’s epic goal.”

In 1982, City was bought by CHUM Limited, which was acquired by CTVglobemedia (now Bell Media) in 2007. The Citytv stations were then sold to Rogers Communications and are now a part of subsidiary Rogers Sports & Media, with seven stations in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, and Montreal, along with the Citytv app.

“When we sought to acquire Citytv 15 years ago in 2007, it was part of a larger plan to be a player in Canada’s broadcast industry,” explains Colette Watson, president of Rogers Sports & Media. “We try to keep the original Citytv DNA in our thought process. It’s spunky and local.”

Jennings (pictured left on the set of Hudson & Rex) recalls Shaftesbury doing three Murdoch Mysteries movies for Citytv before the detective series was greenlit and went on to air in over 150 countries and territories. “At the time, if you looked around the world, nobody was doing period-piece police procedurals. So again, that’s Citytv thinking: ‘We don’t have all the money in the world. We’ve got to pick our things. How are we going to get noticed in a super-crowded marketplace?'”

Mark Montefiore, founder and CEO of New Metric Media (pictured right; Children Ruin Everything; Letterkenny), says Citytv provided the original bulk of the financing for his Canadian-turned-international hit gritty crime drama Bad Blood, which aired for two seasons from 2017-18 and also landed on Netflix.

“Bad Blood was so different than anything we made before,” he says, “and Rogers gave us the opportunity to be able to take a big swing. Bad Blood is a big, ambitious, glamorous project with lots of guns and explosions. It’s not a cheap production to do, even for broadcasters with the deepest pockets in Canada. Rogers wasn’t scared by that.”

Watson says of her strategy for the company: “Humans – from the beginning of time ’til the end of time – will always want to be informed and entertained. That will never change. So give them programming they want, how they want it, and you’ll be fine.”

To that end, Citytv was “early to the streaming world when we launched Citytv NOW streaming in 2018,” she adds. While Citytv’s biggest audience is still conventional television (linear), the fastest-growing viewership is streaming (non-linear), so Citytv caters to both. As such, last April Citytv also launched new video streaming products: Citytv+ and CityNews 24/7 on Amazon’s Prime Video, which boosted audiences, according to Citytv.

The company declined to share viewership or subscriber details for Citytv+ and CityNews 24/7 but touts them as “innovative, new digital streaming video products” aligned with its goals for “streaming partnerships to increase distribution” of its content.

When it comes to Citytv’s audience, “2022 was the best yet,” says Watson (pictured left), citing year-over-year growth in audience from fall ’21 vs. fall ’22, with an increase of 7% in primetime share.

Recent Canadian success stories on the channel include Hudson & Rex, a feel-good cop show about a man and his trusted dog, which airs in 120 countries. Season five has attracted average audiences of 684.9 thousand (demographic of 2+), according to Numeris.

Then there’s the revival of Canada’s Got Talent (CGT), produced by Fremantle, SYCO Entertainment and McGillivray Entertainment Media, in association with Citytv. During the season that launched last March, the reality competition series reached 4.6 million Canadians on linear and more than 410,000 unique viewers across Citytv.com, the Citytv app, and Citytv+ on Prime Video, according to Numeris.

Janice Smith, VP of national media sales at Rogers Sports & Media, says by the end of season one, “CGT owned not only the top spot in primetime, but our audience has progressed incredibly well, with great consistency throughout the show.” She adds that the series (pictured right) was a great vehicle for brand integrations for advertisers including Tim Hortons and CIBC.

“For us, brand integration is about creating some really great original content … that’s specific to Citytv and specific to Canadian audiences,” Smith continues. She points to examples CGT, Hudson & Rex (pictured right), and Bachelor in Paradise Canada as “very big, original productions with proven … incredible opportunities for our clients to embed their products, and their messaging right into shows.”

Tim Hortons is also integrated into popular morning show Breakfast Television, which has been around since 1989, and daytime talk series Cityline, which began as a format in 1983.

Talk of Cityline and news broadcasting harkens back to Citytv’s roots and the “bleeding-edge” journalism for which was Citytv famous as “CityTV” or “City.” (The current rebrand of Citytv – with a small ‘tv’ – was decided in 2018.)

Watson says their current news programming is akin to the videographer days of the old CityPulse, only now instead of using bulky cameras, reporters go “out with a phone and bring your story in, so that way we can cover more [stories]. We don’t have the budgets that Global and CTV have, but we certainly have the will and desire, and local news is important to us, and will continue to be important to us.”

This story originally appeared in Playback‘s Winter 2022 issue

Photo of Canada’s Got Talent by Jag Gundu; photo of Moses Znaimer by Don Dixon; photo of Christina Jennings on the set of Hudson & Rex by Richie Perez for Shaftesbury