CTV Two

CTV Two (also known as "CTV 2") is a Canadian English language television system that is owned by the Bell Media subsidiary of Bell Canada. The system consists of four over-the-air owned-and-operated television stations (O&Os) in Ontario and one in British Columbia, and two regional cable-only channels, one in Atlantic Canada and the other being the provincial cable-only educational channel in Alberta.

CTV Two provides complementary programming to Bell Media's larger CTV network – primarily newer or younger-skewing series which have smaller audiences than those on the mainline CTV network.

History

Beginning as NewNet

The system began to develop in September 1995, at CKVR in Barrie, Ontario. In 1995, owner CHUM Limited dropped CKVR's longtime affiliation with CBC Television and relaunched it as an independent station with a more youthful image in order to generate interest from viewers in the neighbouring Toronto market, where CKVR had long been available on basic cable. This included adopting a news format similar to the CityPulse newscasts on sister station CITY-TV, replacing its various classic television shows with more contemporary series, and picking up a package of games for the Toronto Raptors, Toronto's then-new NBA franchise. The resulting station became known as "The New VR".