The station first signed on the air on September 1, 1974. CITV was originally owned by Allarcom, owned by Dr. Charles Allard, and launched under the brand "Independent Television", a brand that the station used until 2000, when it became part of the Global Television Network. In 1991, Allarcom was purchased by Western International Communications' WIC Television division, which in turn was purchased by Canwest Global Communications in 1999. CITV joined the Global Television Network on September 4, 2000, along with fellow Alberta stations CICT in Calgary and CISA in Lethbridge, but CICT had been carrying Global's programming since 1988. article. Beginning in 1981, CITV became a national superstation, being offered on most cable television systems across the country through the Cancom service for Canadian cable television providers too distant to receive most over-the-air television signals. It is still carried on satellite television nationwide through Bell TV and Shaw Direct, as well as on several cable systems across Canada outside Alberta, including in all of Newfoundland and Labrador and some areas of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and the Yukon. From 1980 to 1982, the station's studios were used for taping episodes of the Canadian sketch comedySCTV; since the station itself was the focus of the storylines, CITV's lobby and control room were often used for SCTV scenes.
News operation
CITV presently broadcasts 45 hours of locally produced newscasts each week ; in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output out of any English-language television station in the Edmonton market. The station was the first in the Edmonton market to have a news helicopter. The helicopter, called "Global 1", is shared with radio station CHED for their traffic reports during the Morning News and the Early News. The helicopter is also used frequently for breaking news coverage. On November 15, 2010, CITV became the first television station in Alberta to begin broadcasting its locally produced programming in high definition. On September 10, 2011, CITV-DT expanded its Saturday morning newscast to three hours. The following day, on September 11, the station debuted a two-hour Sunday morning newscast. On August 27, 2012, CITV-DT expanded its weekday morning newscast to four hours, with the addition of a half-hour; in addition on September 2, 2012, the station expanded its Sunday morning newscast to three hours with an additional hour. The expansions to CITV's morning news programming was part of a benefits package that was included as a condition of the sale of the Global Television Network to Shaw Communications.
