Canada resumes TV newscasts from capital

Ottawa -- Finishing touches and testing were under way Monday to resume broadcasting of national news from Canada's capital after a 40-year absence, Global TV said.

Not since the early 1960s when the CTV network debuted with late anchor Peter Jennings has the country had a national telecast from Ottawa, the Ottawa Citizen reported. Until Monday, CTV, Global and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.'s national reports originated in Toronto with correspondents in Ottawa bureaus reporting on political events.

Global's Ottawa report will indeed be a national effort, as anchor Kevin Newman will read the report to a robotic camera being controlled from a production facility across the country in Vancouver, the network said.

Steve Wyatt, Canwest's senior vice president of news and information said testing last week of the system went flawlessly.

The company also chose Monday as the official launch of its Canwest News Service, which has been operating out of Ottawa supplying its chain of newspapers since July when it canceled it subscription to the Canadian Press agency.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.