Canada AM is a Canadian breakfast television news show, which has aired on the CTV Television Network since 1972. It was created as a response to the popularity of American morning shows such as The Today Show and adopted a similar format initially. The program currently airs only on weekdays.

Personalities

The show's current hosts are Beverly Thomson and Seamus O'Regan. Marci Ien reports from the headline news desk and Jeff Hutcheson presents the weather forecast and sports.

The show's initial hosts were Carole Taylor, Percy Saltzman and Dennis McIntosh. Subsequent hosts have included Helen Hutchinson, Pamela Wallin, Norm Perry (the show's longest-running host, from 1975 to 1990), J.D. Roberts, Dan Matheson, Sandie Rinaldo, Keith Morrison, Valerie Pringle, Rod Black and Lisa LaFlamme.

Until March 2009, the program also included opt-outs for news updates from a local anchor at each station at the end of each half hour. The network would always produce an alternate national segment for stations not using the opt-outs, as well as CTV News Channel. CTV cancelled the updates in order to reduce costs at its local stations.

Format

Prior to 2008

For most of the 1990s and 2000s, Canada AM had a consistent running time of two and a half hours, airing between 6:30 and 9:00 a.m. local time, with most affiliates repeating the previous night's late local news at 6:00 a.m. As the program is produced live for the Eastern Time Zone, the program would be "delayed" in Atlantic Canada to 7:30-10:00 AT / 8:00-10:30 NT.

The first half hour would typically consist of a rundown of news headlines, sports, and weather, followed by a lengthy business news segment currently produced by Business News Network; for a few years the 6:30 half-hour was in fact a semi-autonomous program known as AM Business. From 7:00 on, the program used a format more in line with its U.S. counterparts. In its final seasons as CTV's Vancouver affiliate, BCTV would preempt the first 30 minutes in favour of its own morning newscast, and eventually delayed the remainder of Canada AM by an hour, i.e. 8 to 10 a.m. (it did not carry the additional hour discussed below).

In fall 2000, CTV decided to match NBC's expansion of Today by adding another hour of Canada AM from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. local, which aired on O&Os and some affiliates. This would include a "coffee talk" segment as well as other lifestyle features. As a result, CTV dropped the recently renamed Live with Regis and Kelly. As Live continued to have strong ratings stateside, the Canadian network re-added the talk show in fall 2001, bumping the "coffee talk" hour to 10:00 a.m. in most areas, before abandoning the final hour entirely later in the season.

Beginning in the 1990s and continuing into the 2000s, Canada AM also aired a weekend edition.

Early 2008

Six-hour schedule (Jan-Jun 2008)
Times	Anchors
06:00 AM–06:30 AM ET 03:00 AM–03:30 AM PT	Marci Ien, Jeff Hutcheson
06:30 AM–10:00 AM ET 03:30 AM–07:00 AM PT	Seamus O'Regan, Beverly Thomson, Marci Ien, Jeff Hutcheson
10:00 AM–12:00 PM ET 07:00 AM–09:00 AM PT	Mi-Jung Lee, Rena Heer, Omar Sachedina
Four-hour schedule (Jun-Sep 2008)
Times	Anchors
06:00 AM–06:30 AM ET 03:00 AM–03:30 AM PT	Marci Ien, Jeff Hutcheson
06:30 AM–10:00 AM ET 03:30 AM–07:00 AM PT	Seamus O'Regan, Beverly Thomson, Marci Ien, Jeff Hutcheson

In 2008, Canada AM announced a format change which saw the show expand to six hours of live programming between 6 a.m. and noon ET every weekday starting January 28, 2008. Local CTV stations across the country aired Canada AM live between 6 and 9 a.m. local time (7 and 10 a.m. Atlantic Time, 7:30 and 10:30 a.m. Newfoundland Time), while the complete six-hour, live edition aired on CTV Newsnet. Between 6:00 and 6:30 am ET was Early Edition, originally aired only in the Eastern, Atlantic and Newfoundland time zones, while it still aired on CTV Newsnet.

The format change was marked by the addition of a second on-air team from CTV B.C. in Western Canada, consisting of host Mi-Jung Lee and weather presenter Rena Heer in Vancouver, and news anchor Omar Sachedina in Toronto. The shift from the Eastern to Western hosting teams took place at 7 a.m. PT (10 a.m. ET).

This timing meant that only viewers in Alberta, British Columbia and part of Saskatchewan saw the western team on their local CTV station, although all other Canadians could watch the western team on CTV Newsnet or out-of-market CTV stations carried by cable providers.

On June 6, 2008, CKNW in Vancouver reported the cancellation of the Vancouver-based portions of Canada AM. Biographies of Mi-Jung Lee and Rena Heer were taken off the show's website the same day. CTV announced that it would revert to the program's original format (the additional 6:00-6:30 half hour will continue as well), stating that the decision was in response to viewer feedback from western Canada indicating a preference for the prior format.

A few weeks prior, CTV cancelled the extra local news segments that appeared at :00 and :30 minutes past the hour, reverting back to updates only at :25 and :55 minutes past the hour.

Current format

Current schedule

Times	Anchors
06:00 AM–06:30 AM ET/PT (Early Edition)	Marci Ien, Jeff Hutcheson
06:30 AM–09:00 AM ET/PT	Seamus O'Regan, Beverly Thomson, Marci Ien, Jeff Hutcheson

Since June 2008, on CTV News Channel, Canada AM aired for 4 hours from 6:00-10:00 ET (3:00-7:00 PT). CTV B.C. has also reverted back to the original local updates, and CTV News Channel aired its news in the other two-hour portion.

However, because the 9:00 ET edition still aired, the June 2008 version was a combination of both versions.

• Eastern, Atlantic and Newfoundland Time Zone viewers didn't notice a schedule difference at all because the 9:00 ET edition was only available on cable.

• Pacific Time Zone viewers were able to see the 2nd and 3rd hour of the eastern edition, but the 1st hour was preempted with the live 9:00 ET edition at 6:00 PT. The first hour of the broadcast was only viewed on CTV News Channel between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM.

In September 2008, the fourth hour of Canada AM was cancelled and replaced with an extra hour of CTV News Channel with Marci Ien. Canada AM now airs identical versions in every time zone, including Early Edition at 6:00 AM.

As noted above, all remaining local news segments were cancelled in March 2009.

Theme music

For several years, in the 1970s and 1980s, the theme music was an instrumental version of The Moody Blues' "Ride My See-Saw", which is from their In Search of the Lost Chord album of 1968. During the same era, CTV's newsmagazine series W5 was using Supertramp's "Fool's Overture".

References

External links

• Canada AM