Canada AM hosts Beverly Thomson, left, and Marci Ien, right, will stay with CTV’s parent company Bell Media, while Jeff Hutcheson will retire following the show’s final episode Friday.

Canada AM hosts Beverly Thomson, left, and Marci Ien, right, will stay with CTV’s parent company Bell Media, while Jeff Hutcheson will retire following the show’s final episode Friday.
Photo Credit: CTV

Major shakeup in Canadian TV

An announcement by Canada’s largest private TV network, CTV, caught Canadians by complete surprise today.

‘Canada AM’, the longest running TV morning show in the country, also known as a breakfast show in some countries, is ending after 43 years.

The final show is tomorrow morning, Friday June 3,

Billed as ‘Canada’s most-watched national morning magazine it runs for three hours from 6AM to 9AM eastern time.

Canada AM broadcast a mix of hard news, breaking news, lifestyle stories, national weather, sports, and interviews with politicians and various celebrities, with live music and occasional offbeat segments and guests.

Sadness, anger from viewers.

The sudden news elicited a variety of reactions, most saddened to learn of the show’s sudden cancellation, but some expressing anger at the network giving a mere 24 hours public notice of the ending of the popular show.

Long time co-host and weatherman Jeff Hutcheson who often also hosted live ‘on location’ reports from around the country and added light-hearted segments, announced his pending retirement in May.

The other co-hosts, Beverly Thompson will move to the  CTV news channel, while Marci Ien will develop new projects with CTV owner Bell Media.

No specific reason has been given for the show’s demise, which has the highest ratings for early morning TV in Canada.

In place of Canada AM on Monday, there will be a simulcast of the CTV News Channel, with a new replacement programme announced sometime next week.

In a press release , Randy Lennox, President, Entertainment Production and Broadcasting, Bell Media said only, “As the television landscape continues to evolve, so too must our programming. We look forward to building upon the success of CANADA AM as we move forward”.

In addition to the public broadcasting network CBC in English, and Radio-Canada in French, there are currently five other commercial TV networks. CTV is the biggest of them with 22 stations across the country, Global is second with 13 stations,  City  with 6 stations, and a cable only station, TVA (French) with 6 stations centred in the province of Quebec, and APTN- broadcasting in aboriginal languages and English and French with two stations.

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