| W5 | |
|---|---|
 Program logo since October 24, 2009 | |
| Genre | News magazine |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 58 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company | CTV News |
| Original release | |
| Network | CTV |
| Release | September 11, 1966 (1966-09-11) – March 23, 2024 (2024-03-23) |
W5 is a Canadiannews magazine television program that was produced byCTV News. The program was broadcast onCTV, with repeat broadcasts onCTV 2,CTV News Channel, andInvestigation Discovery. The program also aired in a radio simulcast onCFRB in Toronto.
The title refers to theFive Ws ofjournalism: Who, What, Where, When and Why? It was the longest-running news magazine/documentary program in North America and the most-watched program of its type in Canada.
In February 2024,Bell Media announced thatW5 would conclude as a regular television series after 58 seasons, due to cutbacks at the company; in September 2024, CTV News would relaunch the brand as aninvestigative journalism unit, which will presentlong-form stories on theCTV National News and other CTV News platforms, and produce occasional documentary specials for CTV under the brandingW5:Avery Haines Investigates.
It was launched asW5 on September 11, 1966, just after the demise ofCBC Television'sThis Hour Has Seven Days, at a time when the CTV network was on the brink ofbankruptcy. The program's magazine format is considered an inspiration for a number of similar programs, including the American program60 Minutes which premiered two years later.[1]
The program's first executive producer and host wasPeter Reilly. He quit only a few weeks into the first season ofW5, in a dispute withJohn W. H. Bassett, who owned the CTV network's biggest station,CFTO-TV inToronto. Reilly went on to become the first host of the CBC's later current affairs offering,The Fifth Estate. Peter Rehak was executive producer through the 1980s and 1990s.
Robert Hurst oversaw a revamping of the program look in the fall of 1995. Fiona Conway became executive producer but left for ABC News in 1998. Conway was succeeded by senior producer Ian McLeod and after he left Malcolm Fox became the executive producer from September 2000 until September 2009. Anton Koschany served as executive producer from 2009-2021, during which time the program moved into HD and produced an expanded number of episodes per season. He was succeeded by current Executive Producer Derek Miller.
The program's first regular host wasKen Cavanagh, with reports fromCTV National News journalists such asDoug Johnson andFrank Drea, who later became aProgressive Conservativemember of Provincial Parliament inOntario andTrina McQueen, later president of CTV. During the 1970s,Henry Champ was a longtime host, along with Ken Lefolii andTom Gould.Helen Hutchinson, who also hosted during the 1970s (concurrent with her tenure as co-host of the morning showCanada AM), was one of the first women to gain a prominent position in television news in Canada. Jim Reed joined the programme in 1972 as a field producer and was later appointed as host along with Hutchinson and Champ.
Eric Malling joinedW5 in 1990 from CBC's rival news magazine,The Fifth Estate. In 1991, a new team of reporters also joined the program:Susan Ormiston, Christine Nielsen, and Elliott Shiff. The program was calledW5 with Eric Malling until Malling moved to hosting the television programMavericks in 1995.[2]
In 1993–94, an in-depth report onNew Zealand showed the results of a nation that had suffered the effects of adebt wall. The report had a significant influence and was used by governments to justify cutting social services. The government of Alberta included transcripts of the program when it sent back rejected grant applications and Ontario PremierBob Rae cited the program during cabinet debates on the deficit. AuthorLinda McQuaig criticized the program saying: "It was just full of misinformation," saying that Malling distorted the situation in New Zealand by presenting what was really a short-term currency crisis as something else: national bankruptcy and the loss of credit. The real issue - an overvalued currency - she says, was never brought up. "I'm talking about confusing the issues," she says, "making people believe things that aren't true because that's the point that he wanted to make. You don't need to come out with a technical lie to do that."[3]
In 1996 for its 30th anniversary, the program was rebranded toW-FIVE and became more populist. Hosts included top CTV journalists, includingLloyd Robertson,Craig Oliver and Jim O'Connell.
With broadcast shifting to HD for the2009–2010 season the program reverted to its traditional titleW5 with a revised graphic treatment and a new theme that reflects its investigative nature and culminates in five notes representative of the five Ws of journalism.
Recent hosts have included Robertson,Sandie Rinaldo,Kevin Newman andLisa LaFlamme (with Robertson continuing to co-host following his 2011 retirement as anchor of theCTV National News until 2016 when he was named special correspondent).W5 has produced such stories as a possible cure formultiple sclerosis ("The Liberation Treatment"), an investigation into fatal shootings by RCMP officers (nominated for aMichener Award), an investigation of abuses at theNova Scotia Home for Colored Children ("The Throwaway Children"), an annual expose ofused car dealer trickery, rampant corruption inCanada's immigration system, and personal stories of burn recovery from theBali bombing.
Since 2000, the program had officially been designated a "documentary series", with only one or two segments filling an hour-long episode, due toCanadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission regulations that count documentaries, but not older-style newsmagazines, as "priority programming". In the 2012–2013 season, the program began experimenting with loosening the format, with occasional three story episodes.
For a period of time in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the program's introductory theme music used part of "Fool's Overture", a song by the UK bandSupertramp. The current theme was composed byDoug Pennock, who has also composed the theme forCTV National News and music for other CTV special projects, including the 2007 two-hour documentaryTriumph & Treachery: The Brian Mulroney Story.
On October 24, 2009, CTV unveiled a new look forW5, introduced a new logo and began broadcasting for the very first time inhigh definition. The title was once again rebranded, back to its original title asW5. This look was further refined with the start of the program's 47th season on September 22, 2012. The start of the 48th season saw the introduction ofDavid Tyler as the current in-show narrator.
In February 2024, as part of cuts byBell Media, it was announced thatW5 would conclude as a regular television series, with its final episode airing in March 2024. Plans were announced for W5 to be relaunched as an investigative journalism unit of CTV News, which will producelong-form and documentary features across its platforms (such as theCTV National News).[4][5] The new W5 unit launched in September 2024, withW5 hostAvery Haines named managing editor and senior correspondent, Jon Woodward as an investigative correspondent, andTSN writer Rick Westhead serving as a senior correspondent. Its first production,Narco Jungle: The Death Train (a five-part report on theDarién Gap), began airing on theCTV National News on September 30, 2024. The unit will also be producing a series of one-hour documentaries for CTV under the titleW5: Avery Haines Investigates, with a series premiere on the Darién Gap airing on October 5, 2024.[6]
W5 came under controversy during the 1970s when it aired a feature called "Campus Giveaways", hosted byHelen Hutchinson. The feature used incorrect statistics to conclude that foreign students were eroding white Canadians' opportunities for a secondary education and benefitting from public universities that were being funded by Canadian taxpayers, without exploring the statement's backgrounds.[7] The host of the program stated:
It has been alleged that the feature was specifically directed to form a negative view towardsChinese andChinese Canadians. As well, it did not determine if the people filmed in that particular episode were actually Chinese or Chinese Canadian.[7][8]
The feature led to widespread protests by Chinese Canadians, includingJoseph Yu Kai Wong (later founder of theYee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care). The feature was also criticized by politicians likeBob Rae andStephen Lewis, both of whom narrated a rebuttal. With the looming threat of a lawsuit,W5 retracted the feature's statement and apologised.[8] The president of CTV at the time,Murray Chercover, issued the following statement on April 16, 1980:
This event also led to the formation of theChinese Canadian National Council in order to form a stronger voice representing Chinese Canadians nationwide.
Hosts, reporters, and producers associated with the program have included:
