9 Channel Nine Court
9 Channel Nine Court (temporarily known as 9 Dave Devall Way for several months beginning in April 2009)[1][2] is the civic address of an office and studio complex of Bell Canada's media unit, Bell Media (formerly CTVglobemedia) in the Agincourt neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, alternatively known as the CTV Toronto Studios, CFTO-TV Studios or Bell Media Agincourt. Before the formation of the "megacity" of Toronto in 1998, the facility was located in the suburb of Scarborough.
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Current usage
It is currently home to the offices and main studios of the CTV Television Network, its local station CFTO-DT, and several other Bell Media properties including TSN, Canada's 24-hour sports service. Previously the building also served as the official corporate head office of CTVglobemedia (and its predecessors) until it was relocated to 299 Queen Street West in 2008.
The building's "vanity" civic address refers to the over-the-air channel on which CFTO, the building's original tenant, broadcasts. It is located at the northwest corner of the junction of Highway 401 and McCowan Road. The CTV network began to use the CFTO facilities for CTV News broadcasts beginning in the mid-1960s, but its head offices were located in Downtown Toronto until after its acquisition by CFTO's parent, Baton Broadcasting, in 1997. Operations for several other TV channels have been centralized there since then.
In the past, excess space in the large facility was used for filming TV specials, series, and films, including portions of Network.[citation needed] Much of this space is now used by other channels in the Bell Media family, such as TSN.
The lottery draws for Lotto 6/49 and Lotto Super 7 (predecessor of Lotto Max) were also held in the building until 2008, even though CFTO had stopped airing those drawings several years prior.
Operations
In addition to CTV and CFTO, channels based at the Agincourt complex include:
- CTV News Channel
- TSN
- Discovery Channel, and its offshoot channels including Animal Planet among others.
The complex also houses the master control facilities for several other CTV stations in Eastern Canada, specifically:
- CJOH-DT Ottawa
- CKCO-DT Kitchener (Southwestern Ontario)
- CFCF-DT Montreal
- CKY-DT Winnipeg
- CTV Northern Ontario
CTV Two had its master control facilities moved here in 2011, housing the following stations:
- CKVR-DT Barrie
- CFPL-DT London
- CHWI-DT Windsor
- CHRO-DT Ottawa/Pembroke
- CTV Two Atlantic
- CTV Two Alberta
- In addition the building also serves as the new home for the technical operations of Bell Media's all-sports radio station in Toronto TSN Radio 1050 which launched on April 13, 2011.
TSN, Sportsnet, and the "parking lot"
From 2001 until early 2008, both TSN and its main competitor Rogers Sportsnet were based at the Agincourt complex. Sportsnet, originally controlled by CTV before the latter's acquisition of TSN in 2000, had been based there since its launch in 1998, but did not move out immediately after TSN moved in.
Hence, when on-air hosts, such as Darren Dreger, moved from one channel to the other, it was referred to as "crossing the parking lot" or, less commonly, "crossing the street". Some at Sportsnet had complained about feeling like "poor country cousins" to CTV and TSN at Agincourt.[3]
This peculiarity had been made light of by a couple of notable hosts on Rogers Sportsnet. Bob McCown, a radio host on Rogers-owned The Fan 590, had constantly commented on his show Prime Time Sports (a simulcast of his radio show on The Fan 590) that Sportsnet executives throw bottles across the street at the TSN studios. In addition, Sportsnet Connected anchor Sean McCormick had openly stated on-air that he drives to work with his wife, Jennifer Hedger, who anchors SportsCentre on TSN.
This arrangement ended on April 30, 2008, when Rogers Sportsnet moved broadcast operations from the Agincourt complex to a new studio in the Rogers Building, a cluster of buildings in the Mount Pleasant-Jarvis Street area of Downtown Toronto.[3]
Other Bell Media facilities in Toronto
Alongside 9 Channel Nine Court, several other Bell Media properties are operated from other facilities in the Toronto area:
- Several other Bell Media television channels, mainly including those acquired from CHUM Limited— such as MuchMusic, M3, MTV2, CP24, BNN, Space, E! and Comedy Gold, are operated from 299 Queen Street West, formerly known as the 'CHUM-City Building'. This location also serves as the current home of CTV's entertainment news program etalk, the corporate head office of Bell Media and the CFTO Downtown Toronto news bureau.
- Studios for Bell Media's radio channels including TSN Radio 1050, 104.5 CHUM-FM, Newstalk 1010 and 99.9 Virgin Radio are currently located at 250 Richmond Street West at Richmond and Duncan streets which is adjacent to 299 Queen Street West. There is a bridge walkway that currently joins these two buildings together.
References
- ↑ Agenda - Scarborough Community Council, March 26, 2009. Accessed online May 24, 2009.
- ↑ Scarborough renames street in honour of Dave Devall, CTV Toronto, March 26, 2009
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
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