Canada AM launches a homegrown Vancouver broadcast to tackle Global's popular morning show
by MARSHA LEDERMAN
Globe and Mail
January 29, 2008 at 4:47 AM EST

VANCOUVER — Vancouver's notoriously competitive media market got a little more fierce this week, with the launch of an expanded Canada AM, broadcast partly from Vancouver.

Canada AM is the country's top-rated national morning show, but in Vancouver, the Global station (formerly BCTV) dominates, with the city's top-rated news programs.

CTV is trying to change that. As of this week, Canada AM will be more B.C.-focused, with two hours of the show originating from Vancouver, anchored by new host Mi-Jung Lee.
                                                      
Until now, viewers on the West Coast were offered a tape-delayed version of the Toronto-based show. (The entire six hours is broadcast live on CTV Newsnet.)

CTV executives say the six-hour live morning show is a first in North America for a conventional broadcaster. The innovation is made possible, they say, by advances in technology. (The Globe and Mail is co-owned with CTV by CTVglobemedia.)

"This is all part of CTV's determination in Vancouver to build our business and to build our viewership," Robert Hurst, president of CTV news and current affairs, said from Toronto last week.

The network is attempting to make those inroads in an increasingly important time slot. "The morning audience is always considered the real growth market," says Lis Travers, Canada AM's executive producer.

At Global, the plan is to meet the heightened competition by continuing as always, with a news- and information-based morning show. "Are we worried? I don't think we're worried," says Ian Haysom, news director for Global British Columbia. "Any competition's good for any media outlet anywhere."

Ratings for the most recent fall ratings period provided by CTV show that Global's morning news program draws an average of 66,000 viewers in Vancouver, compared with 9,000 for Canada AM. CITY-TV's Breakfast Television draws 11,000 viewers, on average.

"I think in terms of ratings, we've got a huge loyal audience that we've built steadily through very shrewd ... programming," Haysom says.

The timing of the launch indicates that CTV plans to capitalize on its status as the official broadcaster for the 2010 Winter Olympics, which are just over two years away. "We're taking ownership of the Olympic issues leading up to 2010 and that's huge for CTV," Lee says.

Lee, 41, anchored the local late-night news on CTV in Vancouver for six years before moving to this national platform. "We're lucky that we get to stay living in Vancouver and still be part of a national show. How many people get to do that?"

For weeks leading up to the launch, Lee rehearsed with her new team - Reena Heer, who reports on weather and traffic, and Omar Sachedina, who delivers news and co-hosts from Toronto. Lee, Heer and Sachedina have also been hanging out together, trying to build a rapport and create chemistry (Sachedina, who is from the Vancouver area, was in town over Christmas). There have been bonding exercises like New Year's Day gatherings and Cranium board-game tournaments.

"Very inspiring, very collaborative," Heer, 31, says about the process of getting the new arm of the show off the ground.

Yesterday's hyper-local debut broadcast featured greetings from several former Canada AM hosts, including Valerie Pringle and Dan Matheson, B.C. Finance Minister Carole Taylor and Pamela Wallin. "You're just going to have the time of your life," Wallin said. There was the requisite number of technical problems as the new crew found its feet.

There is a lot riding on this for CTV, as it works to change deep-rooted traditional viewing habits in Vancouver that have long favoured Global news. "BCTV is the big heritage station that's been the big news leader for [about] 20 years," Hurst says. "It's a huge juggernaut."

But Heer, who left the safe, top-rated environs of Global's morning show for the Canada AM opportunity, says the jump was a no-brainer. "This is going to be an amazing show. So not to do it would have been crazy, I think."