tv redirect here . for other uses see global television disambiguation . global television network type broadcast television network country canada availability national northern u.s. terrestrial parts of u.s. and bermuda via digital cable slogan ready let s go owner corus entertainment key people doug murphy president and ceo of corus entertainment troy reeb vice president of news launch date january 6 1974 launch of ckgn tv ; now ciii dt 1990 as the canwest global system august 18 1997 national launch of global brand former names canwest global system used in the 1990s on non global branded canwest stations sister channels global news bc 1 slice food network showcase hgtv history diy network official website global television network global television network more commonly called global or occasionally global tv is a privately owned canadian english language broadcast television network . it is currently canada s second most watched broadcast television network after ctv citation needed and has twelve owned and operated stations throughout the country . global is owned by corus entertainment the media holdings of jr shaw . global has its origins in a regional television station of the same name serving southern ontario which launched in 1974 . the ontario station was soon purchased by the now defunct canwest global communications and that company gradually expanded its national reach in the subsequent decades . the national entity was known as the canwest global system until adopting the ontario station s branding in 1997 . contents 1 history 1.1 ntv 1.2 global communications 1.3 launch 1.4 1970s 1990s 1.5 2000s 1.6 2010s 2 television listings 3 programming 3.1 news 3.2 entertainment 3.3 sports 3.4 global video 4 global hd 5 global stations 5.1 owned and operated stations 5.2 affiliates and secondary carriers 5.3 former owned and operated station 6 e 7 see also 8 references 9 external links history edit ntv edit the network has its origins in ntv a new network first proposed in 1966 by hamilton media proprietor ken soble the owner of independent station chch tv through his niagara television company . 1 financially backed by power corporation of canada soble submitted a brief to the board of broadcast governors in 1966 proposing a national satellite fed network . 2 under the plan soble s company would launch canada s first broadcast satellite and would use it to relay the programming of chch to 96 new transmitters across canada . 3 soble died in december of that year ; his widow frances took over as president of niagara television 4 while former ctv executive michael hind smith and niagara television vice president al bruner handled the network application . 5 soble had originally formulated the plan after failing in a bid to acquire ctv . 1 the original proposal was widely criticized on various grounds including claims that it exceeded the board s concentration of media ownership limits and that it was overly ambitious and financially unsustainable . 6 as well it failed to include any plan for local news content on any of its individual stations beyond possibly the metropolitan toronto montreal and vancouver markets . 6 by 1968 ntv put forward its first official license application under which the original 96 transmitters would be supplemented by 43 more transmitters to distribute a separate french language service 7 along with provisions for the free distribution of cbc television and a new noncommercial educational television service on the network s satellite . 7 transponder space would also be leased to ctv and t l m tropole but as competing commercial services they would not have been granted the free distribution rights the plan offered to the public television services . 7 however after federal communications minister paul hellyer announced plans to move forward with the publicly owned anik broadcast satellites instead of leaving the rollout of satellite technology in the hands of private corporations power corporation backed out of the application and left ntv in limbo . 8 global communications edit the original logo 1974 1997 of global featured a stylized g . bruner was fired from niagara television in 1969 purportedly because his zeal to rescue the network application was leading him to neglect his other duties with the company s existing media operations . 9 he then put together another investment team to form global communications which carried the network application forward thereafter . 10 by 1970 the canadian radio and television commission had put out a formal call for third stations in several major cities . global communications put forward a revised application under which the network would launch with transmitters only in ontario as an interim step toward the eventual buildout of the entire network originally envisioned by soble . 8 because niagara television and chch were no longer involved in the proposal the 1970 application also requested a license to launch a new station in toronto as the chain s flagship . the network license was approved by the crtc on july 21 1972 . 11 the group was granted a six transmitter network in southern ontario stretching from windsor to ottawa . 12 they had also sought a seventh transmitter in maxville that could reach montreal 12 but were turned down because of a crtc moratorium on new stations in the montreal market . 11 the transmitters would all be fed from a central studio in toronto . 12 the group promised a high level of canadian content and agreed not to accept local advertising . the station s initial plan was to broadcast only during prime time hours from 5 p.m. to midnight while leasing daytime hours to the ontario educational communications authority to broadcast educational programming . 11 however the oeca declined the offer opting instead to expand the tvontario network by launching its own transmitters . the new global television network with the callsign ckgn tv now ciii dt launched on january 6 1974 12 from studios located at a former factory in the don mills neighbourhood in north york now in toronto at 6 p.m. 13 local time . global remains based there today . although the ontario station has always been based in toronto its main transmitter was licensed to paris ontario ; halfway between kitchener waterloo and hamilton until 2009 . launch edit global s original prime time schedule included patrick watson s documentary series witness to yesterday pierre berton s political debate show the great debate a canadian edition of bernard braden s british consumer affairs newsmagazine the braden beat william shatner s film talk show flick flack sunday night toronto toros hockey games and a nightly variety series called everything goes 12 as well as a few imported american series including chopper one dirty sally and doc elliot . in march the station drew a formal complaint from mp james mcgrath against its airing of the 1969 western film heaven with a gun as the film featured scenes of violence which mcgrath considered inappropriate . 14 the station ran into a financial crisis within just three months . due to the crtc decision it was forced to launch at midseason . many companies had already allocated their advertising budgets for the season and had little money left to buy time on the newly minted network 15 and even some of the advertisers who had booked time on the network backed out in light of the 1973 oil crisis . 16 in addition the short lived american adoption of year round daylight saving time in january 1974 and the ontario government s refusal to follow suit had unexpectedly forced everything goes promoted as the network s flagship show into airing directly opposite the tonight show with johnny carson and thus attracting disastrous ratings . 17 as a result of the crisis the station quickly lost access to its line of credit . 15 unable to meet daily expenses global initially approached potential bidders including channel seventynine denison mines standard broadcasting and the jim pattison group 15 and was soon bailed out by iwc communications a syndicate which included toronto businessman paul morton broadcaster allan slaight and izzy asper a manitoba politician turned broadcaster . 18 asper s company canwest capital owned cknd tv in winnipeg which was already carrying some of global s programs under a syndication deal . 18 1970s 1990s edit a considerable number of programs featured on global s schedule were cancelled in the spring of 1974 . by that fall it was obvious that global s original model was unsustainable and it was forced to pick up a large amount of american programming to fill in the gaps . with american imports filling as much of the schedule as canadian content rules would allow 60 % canadian overall 50 % canadian in prime time global had effectively become another ctv . 19 with the exception of the nightly newscasts few other canadian produced programs remained on the station and the ones that did exist were largely criticized as cheaply produced filler . 19 john spalding the station s original program director quit in 1975 after being unable to convince the station s owners to invest more money into higher quality production . 20 over several years the prime late evening newscast shifted between 10 and 11 p.m. and between 30 and 60 minutes . ckgn changed its callsign to ciii tv in 1984 . asper bought controlling interest in 1985 making him the first western based owner of a major canadian broadcaster . in 1989 asper and morton tried to buy each other out a struggle which was resolved in favour of asper and canwest . the network continued to be limited to its six transmitter chain in ontario for its first decade . however soon after asper bought controlling interest in global he seemed eager to grow his chain of stations into a third national network . he started by launching two stations in saskatchewan 21 22 and winning a legal battle for a station in vancouver 23 during the second half of the 1980s . he also acquired a fledgling system in the maritimes in the early 1990s . 24 canwest s stations now reached seven of canada s ten provinces . the canwest stations purchased many of their programs collectively and consequently had similar although not identical broadcast schedules . they did not share common branding however although stations were sometimes indicated as being part of the canwest global system as a secondary brand throughout the 1980s and early 1990s they each retained their own branding and continued to function as an ownership group of independent stations rather than as a fully unified network . the second logo 1997 2006 of global which debuted with its formal rebranding as a national network . the crescent motif was also used on the logos of other canwest properties such as ch prime and mystery tv and is still featured on dejaview s logo . in 1997 canwest bought controlling interest in the cbc affiliate in quebec city ckmi tv from tva 25 which retained a 49 % interest until 2002 . with the acquisition of ckmi canwest now had enough coverage of canada that it seemed logical to rebrand its station group as a network . accordingly on august 18 1997 canwest scrubbed all local branding from its stations and rebranded them as the global television network the brand previously used solely by the ontario outlet . on the same day ckmi disaffiliated from cbc set up rebroadcasters in montreal and sherbrooke and became the quebec outlet of the newly minted network . it also built a new studio in montreal and moved most of its operations there though the license nominally remained in quebec city until 2009 . canwest s purchase of ckmi extended global s footprint to eight of canada s 10 largest markets though ottawa and montreal were only served by rebroadcasters . even so global was still not a fully national network as