CityNews Channel broadcast an all-news format, consisting of local, national and international news. It operated a 24-hour news wheel as seen on-screen, with traffic and weather reports every 10 minutes on the :1s, sports news at :15 and :45 past the hour, and business news at :26 and :56 past the hour, a similar format used on Rogers-owned all-news radio station in Toronto, CFTR, and two of CITY-DT's local newscasts, CityNews at Five and Breakfast Television. The channel's anchors were rotated depending on time period. Live rolling news programming is from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 7 a.m.-6 p.m. weekends, and 7-11 p.m. every night. The station also aired simulcasts of all CITY-DT-produced local programming. Encore broadcasts of CityNews at Six were seen on CityNews Channel at 7 p.m. while the 11 p.m. newscast, CityNews Tonight was repeated on CityNews Channel at midnight. During the overnight hours when CityNews Channel did not broadcast live programming or CITY news broadcasts, from 1 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. weekdays and midnight to 7 a.m. ET weekends, it aired an audio simulcast of 680 News and live traffic camera feeds from the Toronto area. Conversely, CityNews Channel had aired simulcasts of its weekend morning news programming on CITY-DT from April 14, 2012 until the channel's closure, on Saturday mornings from 7-8 a.m. and Sunday mornings from 7-9 a.m. The channel incorporated a large news ticker consisting of news headlines, weather information, sports scores and advertisements. In addition to sharing branding and content with CITY-DT and content from 680 News, the channel aired content and features from several other Rogers-owned outlets including specialty channel Sportsnet, and Maclean's, MoneySense, Today's Parent and Hello! Canada magazines.
History
Under the ownership of CHUM Limited, Citytv had operated CablePulse 24, another Toronto-based local news channel, from 1998 to 2007. However, CHUM Limited was purchased in 2007 by Bell Globemedia, which then sold the Citytv stations to Rogers Media. CTV retained ownership of CHUM's cable channels, including CP24, which was paired with CTV's CFTO-DT instead of Citytv. Rogers was granted approval for a specialty channel licence for CityNews Channel by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on December 10, 2008. The channel was then tentatively known as CITY News , and was set to be launched in late 2009. However, this was delayed due to economic conditions as well as the reconstruction of Citytv's new headquarters at 33 Dundas Street East. On May 30, 2011, the same day that Citytv's 2011-2012 television broadcast schedule was unveiled, Rogers announced plans to launch the new channel in the fall of the same year. The channel was launched on October 3, 2011, as CityNews Channel. Rogers Cable initially carried the new channel on digital cable channel 1 in the GTA. However, on November 22, 2011, the channel was moved to Rogers digital cable channel 15, the former cable slot for CKXT. Digital channel 1 has reverted to serving as a Rogers promotional channel. The channel was later added on Cogeco Cable in July 2012. Like all specialty channels launched since 2001, CityNews Channel was not eligible to be carried on analogue cable, and thus PBS member station WNED-TV/Buffalo was moved to the channel 15 position for Toronto-area Rogers subscribers without a set-top box. Due to financial difficulties, Rogers Media ceased live broadcasts of the CityNews Channel on May 30, 2013, in order to redirect its news resources in Toronto to 680News and City Toronto's "CityNews" newscasts. Until June 30, 2013, the channel maintained the news ticker, with the live video portion of the channel broadcasting live traffic camera feeds, weather maps, and promotions. At Rogers' request, the CRTC revoked CityNews Channel's broadcasting licence on October 1, 2013.
