CITO was established in 1971 as CKSO-TV-2, originally rebroadcasting CKSO in Sudbury. Unlike CKSO and CKNY in North Bay, which were established in the 1950s as CBC affiliates and then reaffiliated with CTV in 1971 when J. Conrad Lavigne established new CBC stations in those markets; in Timmins, Lavigne's existing station CFCL retained its CBC affiliation and CTV service was provided by a rebroadcast transmitter of CKSO. Until 1980, CKSO-2 and CFCL aggressively competed with each other for advertising dollars, leaving both in a precarious financial position due to the Timmins market's relatively small size. In 1980, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved the merger of Cambrian Broadcasting and Lavigne's Mid-Canada Communications into the MCTVtwinstick. The station's callsign changed to CITO-TV at that time and it began operating as a standalone station. In 1990, the stations were acquired by Baton Broadcasting. Baton subsequently became the sole corporate owner of CTV, and sold CFCL to the CBC in 2002.
Transmitters
These and many other CTV rebroadcasters nationwide were to shut down on or before August 31, 2009, as part of a political dispute with Canadian authorities on paid fee-for-carriage requirements for cable television operators. A subsequent change in ownership assigned full control of CTVglobemedia to Bell Media; as of 2011, these transmitters remain in normal licensed broadcast operation. On February 11, 2016, Bell Media applied for its regular license renewals, which included applications to delete a long list of transmitters, including CITO-TV-3 and CITO-TV-4. Bell Media's rationale for deleting these analogue repeaters is below:
"We are electing to delete these analogue transmitters from the main licence with which they are associated. These analogue transmitters generate no incremental revenue, attract little to no viewership given the growth of BDU or DTH subscriptions and are costly to maintain, repair or replace. In addition, none of the highlighted transmitters offer any programming that differs from the main channels. The Commission has determined that broadcasters may elect to shut down transmitters but will lose certain regulatory privileges as noted in Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2015–24, Over-the-air transmission of television signals and local programming. We are fully aware of the loss of these regulatory privileges as a result of any transmitter shutdown."
At the same time, Bell Media applied to convert the licenses of CTV2 Atlantic and CTV2 Alberta from satellite-to-cable undertakings into television stations without transmitters, and to reduce the level of educational content on CTV2 Alberta. On July 30, 2019, Bell Media was granted permission to close down an additional transmitter as part of Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2019-268. The transmitter for CITO-TV-2 will be shut down by December 3, 2021.
