New CP24 morning show?

Shortly after CTV acquired regional cable specialty outlet CP24 from CHUM-City and subsequently sold off Toronto's CITY-tv to Rogers (to meet CRTC ownership diversity requirements) , the separation of the CITY and CP24 newsrooms began. Long ago, CP24 supplanted the Citypulse newcast for the CTV Toronto alternative. The last programming relic of the old joint ownership structure is the Breakfast Television (or "BT") morning show, which is still being simulcast on both CITY-tv and CP24. But now it appears that sharing arrangement may be about to end soon as well.

For several weeks now CP24 has been running exclusive segments during BT commercial breaks entitled "More on CP24". The short segments have featured some faces familiar to BT viewers from past appearances on that telecast; including Ann Rohmer at the news desk, Nadini Sharma (who preceded current BT weatherman Frank Ferragine) on weather, Mika Midolo (hired away from TTC Control) on transit reports, Bob Summers (from CHUM FM) on traffic and (former TTC trooper) Cam Wooley roaming the roads in a SUV. BT meanwhile now uses Eva Fragiskatos for traffic, Kevin Carrington as Mika's replacement at the TTC Transit Control desk and Francis D'Souza as its news anchor.

But the most exciting change on CP 24 mornings coverage was unveiled this week when they introduced their new morning co-anchor team of Melissa Grelo and Matte Babel. Melissa and Matte offer a new younger alternative to BT's more veteran team of Kevin Frankish and Dina Puliese.

It would appear that CP24 now has a full team in place and may be poised to flip the BT switch off and mount its own rival morning show by expanding the More segments into a full length morning news and info show. While this evolution has not been formally announced and the exact date of the switch-over is unknown, the launch appears to be imminent. Clearly CTV has not invested in upgrading its CP24 on-air personality roster simply to produce two minute "More" insert segments that pre-empt lucrative commercial time! The More segments clearly appear to be a transitional measure to prepare viewers for the launch of a full length show to compete head to head against BT. Whether the new CP24 morning show will also feature "live eye" style remote features (a la the Jennifer Valentine hosted segments on BT) remains to be seen.

This development is clearly good news in a city where TV networks have recently been more inclined to cancel local news programming in cost containment measures reacting to advertising revenues plummeting in the recession! The GTA market is definitely large enough to support a second local-focus "newswheel" type morning show, offering fast weather and traffic updates!