CP24

The channel was licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 1996 as Pulse 24, described as "a 24-hour-a-day specialty television service devoted to news and information, with a focus on southern Ontario local and regional news and information",[1] and launched on March 30, 1998 as CablePulse 24, under the ownership of CHUM Limited, the parent company of CITY-TV and minority partner Sun Media, owner of the Toronto Sun daily newspaper. For the first 10 years after its inception, CP24's programming was anchored and featured reports from Citytv personalities, live CityPulse news broadcasts were immediately repeated on CP24 after their initial broadcast on CITY-TV (except for breaking news coverage), and special coverage was simulcast between the channel and the television station. Select programming from other CHUM stations would also be featured on the channel, including The NewMusic and Fashion Television; another program, 24Ontario, featured news stories from CHUM's NewNet stations elsewhere in the province.

Overnight broadcasts on CP24 featured vintage CityPulse news broadcasts from CITY-TV during the 1970s & 1980s branded as Rewind. The rebroadcasts were accompanied by a graphic on the top right corner of the screen that read "Rewind", supplemented with the original airdate below it.

On December 1, 2004, CHUM Limited acquired the remaining interest in CP24 (giving it 100% of its shares), when the Sun's owners sold their 29.9% share in CP24 after acquiring its independent broadcast station CKXT-TV, the same day that CHUM Limited took control of Craig Media and its assets also.

Under CHUM ownership, Mark Dailey of CITY provided continuity voice announcements on CP24.

Logo used from 2000 to 2012.

On July 12, 2006, Bell Globemedia (the latter which became CTVglobemedia in 2007) announced a friendly bid to take over CHUM Limited for an estimated $1.7 billion. One year later on June 8, 2007, the CRTC approved the CTV takeover of CHUM. However, the CRTC made the deal conditional on CTV selling the Citytv stations. On June 12, 2007, Rogers announced that it had agreed to buy the Citytv stations (including Citytv Toronto) for $375 million. The deal was finalized later that year, with a stipulation that CTV maintain ownership of CHUM's 299 Queen Street West headquarters and studios. CTV chose to keep CP24, and the rest of CHUM assets (including the A-Channel stations) it had said it would sell.

As a result of the ownership changes, CP24 began to separate its operations from those of CITY-TV. This process began in 2008, with the introduction of new CP24-only personalities (which meant they were no longer seen anchoring/reporting on the CityNews side), new live eye trucks (also known as Breaking News Vehicles) which were outfitted with white and black design bearing the CP24 and red "Breaking News" decals, the establishment of a new studio and newsroom on the second floor of the 299 Queen Street West building in November of that year,[2] and the removal of nearly all Citytv's news simulcasts from its schedule few weeks later on December 10 of that year, (excluding Breakfast Television), and replacing the 6 p.m. CityNews simulcast with CFTO's CTV News Toronto at Six.[lower-alpha 1]

On March 26, 2009, Breakfast Television was replaced with the launch of its own new morning show, CP24 Breakfast, which marked the completion of CP24's separation from Citytv. Also coinciding with the launch, included the rebranding of its oldies music radio station 1050 CHUM (another station which was acquired in the CTV/CHUM acquisition) to a news talk radio format which operated as an audio simulcast of CP24 called "CP24 Radio 1050". The move was intended to broaden the network's reach as a multi-platform news source, but did not prove successful; Toronto Sun columnist Ted Woloshyn in particular pointed out that the station was simply airing a straight simulcast of CP24 television content that was not properly formatted for radio.[lower-alpha 2][9]

Following the layoffs and cost-cutting measures that took place at the Citytv stations across Canada (including the cancellation of Citytv Toronto's CityNews at Five announced on January 19, 2010), CP24 immediately expanded its Live at 5 newscast (which had been airing for 15 minutes since its launch in 2008) to 30 minutes along with the launch of another half-hour newscast, Live at 5:30.[10][11] As a result, CP24's late-afternoon talk shows, such as Animal House Calls and Hot Property, which had been seen weekdays at 5:15 p.m. were moved to a new 7:15 p.m. time slot on January 26, 2010.[12]

On September 10, 2010, BCE (a minority shareholder in CTVglobemedia) announced that it planned to acquire 100% interest in CTVglobemedia for a total debt and equity transaction cost of $3.2 billion CAD.[13] The deal which required CRTC approval, was approved on March 7, 2011[14] and closed on April 1 of that year, on which CTVglobemedia was rebranded Bell Media.[15]

On March 19, 2011, CP24 introduced a weekend edition of CP24 Breakfast, hosted by Pooja Handa and Gurdeep Ahluwalia, George Lagogianes is the remote host and Nneka Elliott (who resigned on May 2, 2011, and was replaced by Jamie Gutfreund) delivers the weather forecasts. The show runs from 7:00-10:15 a.m., however. CP24 at Night's branding was not changed.[16]

Since 2008, CP24 has leased a Bell 206L-4 Long Ranger (C-FCTV) news helicopter which can broadcast live at 1500 feet above land; nicknamed Chopper 24, which is supplied by its sister station, CTV Toronto and is painted with CTV's colouring and logo.

CP24 operates a fleet of remote transmission trucks that use digital microwave and satellite uplink systems to do live news reports throughout the region. Known as "Breaking News Vehicles" the custom-built 2008 Chevrolet Suburbans were outfitted by Frontline Communications of Clearwater, Florida, USA. The vehicles use a red, white and black paint scheme with the channel's logo and the "Breaking News!" slogan also included in the design.

In 2009, CP24 became the first station in Canada to introduce a new Beat the Traffic system showing a three-dimensional animated map displaying traffic flow, roadwork, accidents and current highway travel times.[19]