• News broadcasting by country

  • Canada

    • Terrestrial television

Unlike in United States, most Canadian television stations have license requirements to offer locally-produced newscasts in some form. Educational television stations are exempt from these requirements; multicultural television stations are also not required to carry news programming, however some stations licensed as a multicultural station do produce local newscasts in varied languages (such as the Omni Televisionstation group). Canadian television stations normally broadcast newscasts between two and four times a day: usually at noon; 5, 5:30 and 6 p.m. in the evening, and 11 p.m. at night (there are some variations to this: stations affiliated withCTVusually air their late evening newscasts at 11:30 p.m., due to the scheduling of the network's national evening news programCTV National Newsat 11 p.m. in all time zones; mostCBC Television-owned stations formerly carried a 10-minute newscast at 10:55 p.m., followingThe National, these were expanded to a half-hour and moved to 11 p.m. during the fall of 2012).

Some stations carry morning newscasts (usually starting at 5:30 or 6 a.m., and ending at 9 a.m.). Unlike in the United States, a primetime newscast in the 10:00 p.m. timeslot is uncommon (Globalowned-and-operated stations in Manitoba and Saskatchewan,CKND-DT,CFSK-DTandCFRE-DT, andVictoria, British Columbiaindependent stationCHEK-DTare the only television stations in the country carrying a primetime newscast); conversely, pre-5 a.m. local newscasts are also uncommon in Canada,Hamilton, Ontarioindependent stationCHCH-DT, whose weekdaily programming consists largely of local news, is currently the only station in the country that starts its weekday morning newscasts before 5:30 a.m. (the station's morning news block begins at 4 a.m. on weekdays).

Like with U.S. television, many stations use varied titles for their newscasts; this is particularly true with owned-and-operated stations of Global and City(Global's stations use titles based on daypart such asNews Hourfor the noon and early evening newscasts andNews Finalfor 11 p.m. newscasts, while all six City-owned broadcast stations produce morning news/talk programs under the umbrella titleBreakfast Televisionand its flagship stationCITY-DT/Toronto's evening newscasts are titledCityNews). Overall umbrella titles for news programming use the titling schemes "(Network or system name) News" for network-owned stations or "(Callsign) News" for affiliates not directly owned by a network ortelevision system.

CBC Television, Global and CTV each produce national evening newscasts (The National,Global NationalandCTV National News, respectively), which unlike the American network newscasts do not air against one another as they are scheduled in non-competitive time slots; whileGlobal Nationalairs at the same early evening time slot as the American evening network newscasts,The National's 10 p.m. ET slot competes against primetime entertainment programming on the private broadcast networks, whileCTV National Newsairs against locally-produced 11 p.m. newscasts on other stations.The National, which has aired on CBC Television since 1954, is the longest-running national network newscast in Canada. All three networks also produce weekly newsmagazinesThe Fifth Estate(aired since 1975),16:9(aired since 2008) andW5(aired since 1966 and currently the longest-running network newsmagazine in Canada).

CTV's Canada AM, which has aired since 1975, is the sole national morning news program on broadcast television in Canada, although it has since been relegated to semi-national status as most CTV owned-and-operated stations west of the Ontario-Manitoba border dropped the program during the Summer and Fall of 2011 in favor of locally-produced morning newscasts. The Sunday morning talk show format is relatively uncommon on Canadian television, the closest program baring similarities to the format was CTV's news and interview seriesQuestion Period, this changed when Global debuted the political affairs showThe West Blockin November 2011.