Daily BrewHow much is too much information for TV news viewers across Canada?
Southern Ontario will get its third news-based TV station this fall after Rogers Media unveiled plans for the CityNews Channel, which will cover much of the same ground as existing channels in Toronto and Hamilton.
The field has similarly grown on a national scale: Sun News launched last month, after putting forth the argument Canada needed an alternative to CTV and, more specifically, CBC News Network.
But does the amount of such news-based programming, whether it's national or local, risk over-saturating the market?
Citytv plans to find out, announcing Monday it will make good on a license granted by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in December 2008 to expand daily newscasts into a 24-hour format based at its Yonge-Dundas Square headquarters.
The concept is partly based on leveraging the other properties owned by Rogers Media: Maclean's magazine and radio station 680 News were announced as prime components of the new venture, along with its flagship Toronto station.
Radio voices can provide updated headlines when the TV newsroom is dark. Publication editors and writers will inevitably moonlight as on-camera commentators.
CityNews Channel has posed a direct challenge to CP24 which, ironically, was first designed in 1998 as a way to squeeze resources from Citytv. Newscasts produced for the main channel were essentially extended and repeated at minimal extra cost.
While ownership changes led Citytv to decamp elsewhere, CP24 ended up in the custody of CTV, which revamped it with an approach that emphasized traffic, weather and often-exaggerated claims of "Toronto's Breaking News."
Yet, the channel's basic cable position has made it a fixture of lobbies and offices. The items on its multi-window screen get glanced at even with the volume turned down.
CP24 also gained some journalistic credibility last year when it offered thorough coverage of the chaos that coincided with Toronto's hosting of the G20 Summit. But CTV owner Bell Media has sought to incorporate more entertainment coverage, too.
While most local TV channels have dealt with financial challenges amidst increased distractions, though, news proved a saviour in Hamilton. Channel Zero, a small company that purchased CHCH-TV from previous owner Canwest for $12 in 2009, has focused on local information throughout the business day.
Given its success at cutting through U.S.-based clutter, this could the beginning of the era of full-time TV news in every corner of Canada, rather than the peak of another media fad.
(Screen capture from Citytv.com)
