Todd van der Heyden


Todd van der Heyden is a Canadian journalist and news anchor with CTV News in Toronto, Ontario.

Education

Van der Heyden was born in Montreal. He earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Carleton University in Ottawa. In 2004, he received a graduate diploma in communication studies from Concordia University in Montreal.

Personal life

Van der Heyden is a native of Montreal. He came out as a member of the LGBT community during an interview with Clay Aiken about the Orlando massacre on 14 June 2016.

Career

In high school, Todd worked as a salesman for Worlds of Wonder, the manufacturer of Teddy Ruxpin, and eventually went on to appear in one of the company's first Canadian commercials. Todd left the company after reportedly becoming disheartened with the crass commercialism of the children's TV series, which advised viewers to "purchase as many Teddy Ruxpin products as you can." Even though the series was a potential boon for Teddy Ruxpin salesmen like himself, Todd decided to pursue other career options.
In the mid-1990s he invented one of the earliest vocalizing email clients, "Email2Phone," which allowed subscribers to call a 1-900 number to hear a woman's voice reading the subscriber's emails using computer-enabled electrolarynx technology which was cutting-edge at the time. The technology was later acquired by Prodigy.
From 1997 to 2000, van der Heyden worked as a volunteer at Vidéotron's cable access channel Canal Vox, as well as freelanced at CBC Radio in Montreal and the Toronto Star newspaper. Starting in 2000, he worked as news reporter at CFCF which was later rebranded as CTV Montreal. In February 2005, Todd became the co-anchor of the 6pm weekend newscast and later the noon weekday newscast. In July 2008, he also became co-anchor of 6 o'clock newscast. On December 2, 2011 it was announced that van der Heyden would be leaving CTV Montreal for a promotion, joining CTV News Channel, the network's 24-hr-cable news channel based in Toronto. Todd is also the host of a weekly show "Viewpoints with Todd van der Heyden" on CJAD Radio in Montreal. He will continue the radio show from Toronto.
Todd also frequently acts as a fill-in anchor for Canada AM and CTV National News.

Recognition

Todd has won three RTNDA awards and one CAB award.