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CTV Northern Ontario

CTV Northern Ontario
Type Broadcast television system
Country Canada
Availability Most communities in Northeastern Ontario, also available nationally via satellite
Owner Bell Media
Parent Bell Canada
Key people
Scott Lund - President
Launch date
1953
Former names
MCTV (1980 - 2005)
Official website
CTV Northern Ontario

CTV Northern Ontario, formerly known as MCTV, is a system of four television stations in Northern Ontario, Canada, owned and operated by the CTV Television Network, a division of Bell Media.

These stations are:

All four stations refer to themselves on air as CTV, not by their call letters, and have common local programming; however, they remain legally licensed as separate stations. Station information and history is discussed on each station's own page. All four stations are available on Bell TV as of November 2012.

Mid-Canada Television, or MCTV, was created in 1980 when Cambrian Broadcasting, which owned the CTV affiliates in Sudbury, North Bay and Timmins, merged with J. Conrad Lavigne's CBC affiliates in the same cities to create Mid-Canada Communications. This twinstick structure was permitted by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission because both companies were on the brink of bankruptcy due to their aggressive competition for limited advertising dollars in small markets. In its decision, however, the CRTC explicitly communicated the expectation that this would exist only as a temporary arrangement, to end as soon as the CBC could afford to directly acquire MCTV's CBC affiliates.

The CBC twinsticks in the original MCTV system were:

All of the stations were also referred to on air as MCTV — the stations were distinguished from each other by use of their network affiliation (i.e., "MCTV-CTV" and "MCTV-CBC"). Sault Ste. Marie's CHBX and CJIC were owned by Huron Broadcasting, and remained under different ownership and branding until 1990.


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