Built on the programming keystones of news, music, and movies, Citytv found early notoriety by broadcasting Baby Blue Movies, a series of late-night, soft-core porn films. While the “Baby Blues” are now off the air, Citytv still broadcasts an average of five movies a day, many of which are world or Canadian premiers. Similarly innovative in music programming, Citytv first telecast The New Music, a forerunner to both MTV and MuchMusic, in 1979. However, Citytv’s most notable distinction lies in a conceptual approach that consistently attempts to expand the mobility and function of the medium. As Canada’s first all-videotape station, Citytv initiated the practices of electronic news gathering and single-person reportage. Such techniques are exercised in the local news program CityPulse, which foregoes anchor desks and news studios for an unconventional and tabloidlike momentum. The emphasis on process, locality, and informal interactivity is particularly evidenced in the ChumCity building, a refurbished 19th-century gothic structure in which there are no studios, sets, or control rooms. Instead, the entire complex is wired to “shoot itself” through a series of strategically placed electronic “hydrants.” In this manner, cameras are enabled to roam anywhere—the roof, stairwells, or the street— and are often integrated into the shot. Viewers then watch camera operators at work setting up, watch themselves viewing programs in process through the building’s large ground-floor windows, or see an interview through the eyes of an interviewee, via a second Hi-8 camera provided to the story subject. The concept of public access is expanded through Speaker’s Corner, a video booth where, for a charity-addressed dollar, passersby may confess their sins, declare their love, or sound off on pet peeves; the best of these are used as shorts between shows or collated into the weekly Speaker’ s Corner program.

Unlike many other Canadian networks or independent stations, Citytv does not bid for dramatic programs produced in the United States, with the exception of importing the contemporary Star Trek series (The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager) and the occasional made-for-TV movie or miniseries. Citytv does buy syndicated daytime talk shows from the United States, which it airs during its weekday schedule. There are no game shows, children’s programs, soaps, sitcoms, or sports on Citytv. Saturday- and Sunday-morning schedules are given over to community ethnic programming.

While often favoring style and self-promotion over substance and self-reflexivity, Citytv’s accomplished characteristic lies in its process-oriented format. This is evident not only within the programs per se but in the breaks between programs: station IDs, interstitials, and promotional spots are tailored to intervene, as well as interweave, within the overall effect and tenor of the show. In this respect, Citytv successfully capitalizes on the capacities of televisual “flow.”