Global National


Global National is the English language flagship national newscast of Canada's Global Television Network. It is produced from Global's national news centre in Burnaby, British Columbia, with Dawna Friesen and Robin Gill anchoring the weekday and weekend editions respectively. From 2008 to 2010, the program was the only Canadian network newscast to be regularly anchored from the nation's capital, Ottawa.
In addition to Global's owned-and-operated stations, Global National also airs on affiliate CHFD-DT in Thunder Bay, Ontario and independent station CJON-DT in St. John's, Newfoundland.
Global also produced a Mandarin version of the newscast, titled Global National Mandarin from 2012-2016. It was anchored by Carol Wang. The newscast was seen on Shaw Multicultural Channel in Vancouver, British Columbia and Calgary, Alberta.

History

Global's first tentative steps towards a national news presence came in 1994 with the launch of First National, a regional newscast presented by Peter Kent which was aired in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. Around the same time, the rival WIC television station group launched Canada Tonight, a newscast produced at WIC's Vancouver station British Columbia Television, and also aired on its stations in Alberta and Ontario.
Following the purchase of WIC's Television stations by Global's then-parent company Canwest, Global announced in January 2001 its plans to launch a new network newscast in September of that year, with Kevin Newman returning to Canada from ABC News as the newscast's chief anchor. First National ended production in February, and the Global stations which had aired that program broadcast Canada Tonight in its place until the new newscast launched.
The final broadcast of Canada Tonight aired on August 31, 2001, and the new newscast, titled Global National, debuted on September 3 from a renovated studio at CHAN, which became a Global O&O two days earlier and produces its local newscasts from the same studio. As part of the deal in which Global bought CHAN, it became home to Global's national news centre; the station had wanted to do a national newscast for several years. Kevin Newman's name was added to the program's title from the start of its second season. The program initially only aired on weekdays; weekend broadcasts began on February 26, 2005, with Tara Nelson as the anchor.
Global National initially aired in different time slots across the country: 5:30 pm in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba; 6:30 pm in Ontario and Quebec; and 11:15 pm in the Maritimes. In conjunction with the launch of Global's new visual identity in February 2006, the program began to be aired live at 6:30 pm in the Atlantic Time Zone. This version of the program is then broadcast via satellite tape delay in time zones to the west, with updates if news events warrant. This allows the newscast to air at a uniform time slot across most of the country, as well as to serve as a lead-in to local news in most markets. While strong in Western Canada from day one - particularly in British Columbia, where CHAN has dominated news ratings for four decades - the timeslot change allowed the program's ratings in Ontario to improve significantly as a result of having The Young and the Restless as its lead-in; that show had previously given a strong ratings bump to CIII's local newscast.
Despite having fewer reporters and being a latecomer to national news in Canada, Global National has come to rival its competitors at CTV National News and CBC's ' in both awards and ratings. During most weeks since the timeslot change in February 2006, Global National had ranked as Canada's most-watched national newscast according to the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement. This is with the caveat that only initial airings from Monday to Friday are compared; CTV still leads on a seven-day basis.
In February 2008, Newman began presenting the weekday edition of Global National from a specially-built digital newsroom and studio facility in Ottawa. The Ottawa studio's cameras were controlled remotely from CHAN-TV in Vancouver, British Columbia where the newscast's main editorial and production staff remain. Similar remote-controlled greenscreen studios were introduced at a number of local Global newscasts.
Tara Nelson was named Global's Europe bureau chief in September 2008; her position as the program's weekend anchor was then shared by Carolyn Jarvis on Saturdays and Robin Gill on Sundays. Nelson resigned in October 2010 to become the new 6:00 pm anchor at CTV Calgary, Alberta.
Newman announced his departure from the network on April 30, 2010, and anchored the newscast for the last time on August 20, 2010. Dawna Friesen was named as his successor on July 13, 2010, and began anchoring Global National on September 20, 2010.
Carolyn Jarvis was reassigned to Global's newsmagazine program ' in 2011, with Robin Gill taking over as Saturday anchor alongside her pre-existing Sunday hosting duties.

''Global National Mandarin''

Global National Mandarin was a newscast aired on the Shaw Multicultural Channel in Vancouver and Calgary. On December 6, 2011, Global announced its plans to launch Global National Mandarin. The 30-minute Mandarin newscast debuted on January 23, 2012, with Carol Wang as anchor. It was announced on June 29, 2016 that Global National Mandarin would air its final broadcast on June 30 as it did not garner the viewership necessary to continue airing. The investigative documentary series 16x9 was also cancelled at this time.

Features

Global National was the first mainstream Canadian newscast to be released as a podcast. In 2006, the download was expanded to include video for playback on a video iPod.

Notable on-air staff



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Anchors

Substitute anchors have included: