First at 4:30: CTV Vancouver Island launches live, hyper-local newscast

First and local. Introducing our new half-hour newscast with Andrew Johnson, weeknights at 4:30 p.m. Focusing on local Vancouver Island news stories weekdays at 4:30 p.m. and again at 6 p.m. (CTV News)

The CTV Vancouver Island newsroom is taking a new approach to delivering news to islanders, launching a live newscast weekdays at 4:30 p.m.

Traditionally, Canadian television stations stick to the 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. timeslots for the biggest stories of the day, but the expansion of news availability on multiple platforms has news consumers growing accustomed to accessing content 24 hours a day.

“CTV Vancouver Island is the number one news website on the island, with consistently more unique visitors than any other local newsroom,” says Stuart Adamson, the station’s News Director and Manager of Operations.

“We recognize that islanders are connecting with our content in a big way, and we want to make it even more convenient for them to access it, on all of our platforms.”

Adamson goes on to say the island’s unique lifestyle presents an opportunity for broadcast news delivery outside of the traditional timeslots.

“Greater Victoria’s workforce, demographics, viewing habits and varying industries, combine to make this in many ways an “early city,” with traffic picking up in the 4 p.m. hour and people arriving home at 4:30 p.m., ready to see what they missed during the day.”

The newsroom’s core group of reporters will cover Greater Victoria and all of Vancouver Island, delivering content for Vancouver Island’s #1 website and the new hyper-local newscast. It will be anchored out of the CTV Vancouver Broadcast Hub, by longtime islander Andrew Johnson.

Johnson joined the Vancouver Island news team in 2007 and departed CTV Vancouver Island in 2022, to join the team at CTV Vancouver, after 14 years in the island newsroom.

“I’m excited to be making a return to the island market,” says Johnson, who also co-anchors CTV Vancouver’s 5 p.m. newscast alongside Nafeesa Kareem. “I now have the best of both worlds, serving both of the cities I continue to call home”.

The new hyper-local newscast launches Monday, June 19 at 4:30 p.m., with the program airing again at 6 p.m. for anyone who can’t tune in earlier. We look forward to continuing to serve our local audience and hope you will join us.