Global Television Network

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	Come home to Global
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, and has twelve owned-and-operated stations throughout the country. Global is owned by Corus Entertainment — the media holdings of JR Shaw and other members of his family.

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.

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. 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. 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. Soble died in December of that year; his widow Frances took over as president of Niagara Television, while former CTV executive Michael Hind-Smith and Niagara Television vice-president Al Bruner handled the network application. Soble had originally formulated the plan after failing in a bid to acquire CTV.