Citytv ‘the little station that could’ turns 50

“The camera came on and I said, ‘Hi there, fasten your seat belts’ and then we did three hours of live television.”

That’s how the late Warner Troyer once recalled kicking off Citytv’s somewhat inauspicious but hopeful first-ever broadcast on Sep. 28, 1972 on channel 79.

Back then the Citytv studios were housed in the former Electric Circus Nightclub at 99 Queen Street East — a somewhat fitting location for the launch of a wild, kaleidoscopic ride that reached its 50th year on Wednesday.

Since that first broadcast a lot has changed, including frequencies, ownership, and locations.

Personalities have come and gone, styles and formats have been tweaked, and technology has evolved.

But at the core, Citytv is still ‘the little station that could’ — the underdog upstart that mocked convention and played a thrilling version of televised jazz, throwing caution to the wind and embracing the inherent risks and rewards.

Along the way there were failures and successes, but it was never boring.

Despite poet Gil-Scott Heron’s declaration that the “revolution will not be televised” — in Toronto, on Citytv, it was.

“Like all great revolutions, it started in the dead of night with a very small group of people,” Citytv co-founder Moses Znaimer shared with a sly smirk in vintage video footage captured for posterity.

Znaimer reflected on the station’s legacy in an interview Wednesday.

“What people first noticed about Citytv was the diversity, long before it was cool, long before it was mandated and forced. City did it because it was the right thing to do,” Znaimer stressed.

“TV at the time was very formal,” he added. “I wanted to free it and I wanted more of a relaxed, more of an immediate, more realistic style of television.

“I had a hunch that they were good moves,” Znaimer said. “It’s gratifying to see that they were so far ahead of its time that they are actually current today.”

Citytv’s shows were daring and innovative. We blushed during Baby Blue movies, turned viewers into stars on Speakers Corner, bopped our heads to the stylish masses grinding on Electric Circus, and sipped champagne together on New Year’s Eve.

Before Netflix, there was Late Great Movies. Mornings were spent slurping coffee to Breakfast Television.

“Citytv planted seeds of creativity before we had any of these specialty channels,” said longtime Cityline host Tracy Moore. “This was the place where ideas were generated that no one else was trying on television.”

Those bold ideas even included giving a gruff, sardonic sock named Ed his own show.

“Citytv was the pulse, the heartbeat of innovation and creativity here in the city,” Ed the Sock told us earlier this week. “It was TV that was made for real people and it was so much more fun and real than anything else you could see. And it really was, up until the time I left and (then) it went straight to hell,” he joked.

Monika Deol, former entertainment reporter, MuchMusic VJ and co-host of Electric Circus, said Citytv was “reality TV before there was reality TV.”

“It was truly organic,” she said. “You were truly yourself.”

“We were just allowed to be who we were and what we were. And it was the good, it was the bad and sometimes it was the ugly.”

News was always at the heart of the operation, but anyone who tuned into CityPulse back in the day quickly realized something was different.

It was raw and unpolished and oozing with realness. Znaimer called it the “daily soap opera” of Toronto and encouraged spontaneity and interaction.

Flaws that would have tarnished the average newscast were embraced, and became part of the charm. The newsroom was alive and no efforts were made to hide its bustling, messy reality.

Reporters were part of the story, and they looked and sounded just like viewers in one of the world’s most multicultural cities. The stuffy stereotypes that dominated news of the day were obliterated.

As former VP of News, Stephen Hurlbut, once explained: “People that are on television should look like the people that they are broadcasting to.”

“We look like the audience, we live with the audience and we address the issues that daily confront the audience.”

That meant breaking barriers.

Ghanaian-Canadian, Jojo Chintoh, became the station’s first Black reporter.

David Onley, who went on to become lieutenant-governor of Ontario, became one of Canada’s first newscasters living with a visible disability when he joined the news team in 1984.

And in 2016, Ginella Massa became the first person to anchor a Canadian newscast (CityNews at 11) wearing a hijab.

Anchor Gord Martineau became the face of the station, and was later joined by co-anchor, Anne Mroczkowski, while former cop Mark Dailey became the station’s voice with his baritone blend of hard-boiled news and searing wit.

The cast of characters continued to grow, and news-beats were legitimized by people who had walked the walk in their respective fields.

Bob Hunter, who reported on environmental issues, was a co-founder of Greenpeace.

Jim McKenny’s tenure with the Toronto Maple Leafs lent credibility to his sportscasts.

Peter Silverman’s military experience served him well when he battled for consumer’s rights on his wildly popular Silverman Helps segments, and Colin Vaughan’s experience as a city alderman made him the perfect person to hold politicians accountable — something he did with great fervor and satisfaction.

Who could forget the poise and personality of the likes of Bill Cameron and Glen Cole. The comedic genius of Kathryn Humphreys. Dini Petty’s disarming openness. John Gallagher’s animated delivery and Harold Hosein’s whacky weather reports.

Naming every reporter or personality who’s contributed to Citytv’s shows or news operations would be too difficult, not to mention the army of behind-the-scenes employees who made it all happen, pulling cables, editing stories, writing scripts and hoisting heavy cameras.

But they were all part of it and from 1972 until today the goal has always been the same — to entertain, educate and enliven. To take chances and break the rules and reflect the diversity of our audience.

“What pleases me most of all, is that people think of that original Citytv with a lot of affection,” Znaimer concluded.

Thanks for letting us into your homes. It’s been quite a ride.

See you at 100.