Caroline Van Vlaardingen anchors her first morning news break on Monday, Feb. 19, 2018.
Of Montreal’s three English-language local TV stations, CTV is the only one without any local programming. Starting Monday, they fix that with the addition of local news updates to the Toronto-based Your Morning show.
Caroline Van Vlaardingen will anchor the segments, which will be inserted into the show just before each half-hour except the last.
Your Morning, the Canada AM replacement hosted by Ben Mulroney and Anne-Marie Mediwake out of Toronto, has a segment each half hour that, in Toronto, is filled with a brief local newscast anchored by Lindsey Deluce. In other markets that don’t have local cut-ins, and on CTV News Channel, it has a local news story taken from a CTV newscast somewhere in the country. (Originally it was an additional national weather update — if you wondered why there seemed to be so much weather on Your Morning, this was why). These segments last two and a half minutes, including pre-recorded intro.
Starting Monday, Montreal adds its own local cut-ins during this segment.
It’s a far cry from a local morning show like you see on City’s Breakfast Television, and not even the two-thirds-local morning show on Global, but it’s better than nothing, or the local ticker updates that Canada AM had after CTV Montreal last had a local morning newscast or local cut-ins.
CTV Montreal News Director Jed Kahane didn’t want to comment beyond the press release, but I’m told that the newscast’s staff was hired internally, giving a bit more work to existing part-timers, and that the newscast will run for a three-month trial period. There is no dedicated morning reporter (though there is an overnight cameraman chasing fires and car accidents), so any overnight updates will be the anchor’s job.
This move comes just under six months after CTV Montreal and other local stations added 5pm weekday newscasts, which similarly tried to produce more local news without making significant additions to staff.
UPDATE (Feb. 20): I watched the first two episodes of Your Morning with the new local inserts, and here’s how it breaks down:
Each insert is a firm two and a half minutes:
- The Newsbreak intro graphic that you’ve seen during afternoon commercial breaks on CTV
- A live shot from the roof camera as the anchor begins talking about weather
- Current weather conditions graphic (temperature, humidity, pressure, wind)
- Between four and six local news briefs, usually about 15-20 seconds each. Almost all consist of an anchor voice-over with B-roll
- A live shot from a remote camera showing a traffic location (it changes each day but stays the same throughout the morning), with anchor voice-over about traffic conditions
- A five-day forecast, and if there’s time, a daily planner forecast and/or current temperatures map
- A quick goodbye
Generally, one new brief will be inserted in each half-hour break. Often the briefs are quick recaps of news from the previous day, and sometimes new briefs that come from overnight emergencies. In one case there was a short sound clip, but otherwise it’s all voice-over and there are no packaged reports.
Kind of a sad state of affairs when you think of all the money that was “saved” by firing the sports reporters,
This is a step in the right direction. And with the way that viewers are consuming news in 2018, it seems logical. CTV Montreal has more boots on the ground than the other anglo outlets. There will be no shortage of quality, professional, vetted , well-sourced content Caroline is a veteran reporter, respected anchor, and, most importantly, she is authentic. Her sincere way with all and professional demeanor will , no doubt, be embraced with open arms. THANK YOU CTV!
Will CTV Montreal cover up the terrible “regional” ticker that Your Morning has and replace with an actual regional news ticker?
Also, CTV Atlantic and CKCO Kitchener still kept their regional cut-ins on Your Morning.
I will definitely be tuning in to CTV Montreal moving forward. Tired of all the fluff and opinions.
I don’t see the celebration here, while you were tired of the fluff or Your Morning, did you not tune in to Breakfast Television on City or the Global Morning News package..?
You are entitled to your opinion. I will never forgive Bell for cancelling Canada AM. When big news breaks I will trust CTV Montreal to inform me of the events taking place over the others. That is for sure. Caroline is a real news journalist with integrity, compassion and maturity. The others seem to be looking for freebies and blow-drys. My opinion.
Who needs more than 5 minutes of TV that earty in the morning? I am good with 2 minutes of quality as I am out the door. No thanks. Tried the others. Embarrassing.
They used to have local inserts on Canada AM at :24 and :54 or thereabouts, if I recall correctly …
I tuned in to BT Montreal this week. The fill in host told a story how he took the train to Toronto and parked his car on the street near Gare Centrale for the weekend. When he returned home at the end of the weekend he was flabbergasted his car had been towed. This took up at least 2 minutes of airtime. Is this person that out of touch that he does not know that the difference between a city street in a metropolitan downtown core and a driveway at home? You better believe our household will be setting our dial to CTV Monday morning and every morning thereafter,
He always goes on about stuff that nobody cares about.
I don’t see the big deal here considering all the cuts I.e. The sports department, Barry Wilson ,and others ,etc and the money they saved.
I mean 2 1/2 minutes is nothing to pop the champagne cork for compared to three hour shows of the competition..
If CTV really wanted to make a local morning commitment ,they’d cut Your Morning to two or two and a half hours and the remainder being filled by a local package. .
And at the same time, at least hire back a local sports reporter to at least do the post-game interviews ,the major press conferences, big trades, etc
Agreed. Barry is a big loss. Local sports is dying like the music industry died. It is a sign of the times…
I rather have your morning replaced by local news. Was hoping would be more like the cut in done during broadcast of Today or Good morning America.
Let’s consider here. The costs are relatively low. Staff wise, it’s a few extra people who otherwise might not have been there. Maybe an extra editor to chop video from last night’s stories down to short segments for the newsreader’s voice over. Wash, rinse, repeat every half hour for a couple of hours.
The upside? The ability to go in front of the CRTC and claim to have “added local content”. 2.5 minutes, 4 times is 10 minutes. 5 days is 50 minutes, probably rounds up to an hour a week, all told. or “50 extra hours a year of local news”. Yet, the reality is that, beyond a couple of extra hours for existing people, you didn’t spend a whole lot of money, and didn’t really use up any extra air time.
Bell plays the CRTC like a fiddle.
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