He says that all the other stations in the market already do a significant amount of local coverage and more than that, have already taken a page from the Citytv book with four-wheel drive vehicles and videographers zipping around the city capturing everything.

"My view is that [none of the competition] is terribly worried about [CityPulse]. None of the other newscasts will be worried about losing tons of viewers to Citytv."

Steve Wyatt definitely isn't worried about CityPulse.

Wyatt is general manager of Global BC (formerly BCTV, call letters CHAN), which moved into the top news spot in the mid-'70s and has stayed there for over 25 years. At that time, the station was the CTV affiliate, but he says it has maintained its substantial lead - and its BCTV moniker - since becoming a Global affiliate a year ago.

"BCTV News on Global is our news brand and as BCTV News it has a tremendous amount of equity in this province," says Wyatt. "It's a very successful news organization that has traditionally been very independent minded with an agenda not necessarily set by an Eastern-based newspaper or other news organization. In that sense, it's probably more profoundly local than most news operations."

Wyatt says the station has stayed number one not only because of its determined dedication to local news, but also because of the sheer volume of news programming it offers - a whopping 45 hours a week.

The morning show, lunch-hour show and Early News are just the warm-up for Global National at 5:30 p.m. and the flagship News Hour at 6 p.m. (with long-time anchor Tony Parsons), which has been the market leader by a margin of roughly three to one for several years.

And unlike many conventional stations, Global BC continues its heavy news focus throughout the weekend with morning, noon, early evening and 11 p.m. shows on both days.

Wyatt says back in the '70s and early '80s, stations could do one big newscast at 6 p.m. and expect everyone to tune in. Today, with changing lifestyles and the availability of news 24 hours a day, he says viewers expect to be able to tune in for news when it best fits their schedule.

BCTV News on Global pretty much wins every demographic in every time period it's on, with its core audience being 25 to 54.

Wyatt expects that news promos during the station's hot Global prime-time programming will help it build its audience even more. Because prime-time programming is geared strongly to the 18-to-49 demographic, he believes it may even pick up some of the 18-plus crowd that CityPulse is hoping to capture.

Meanwhile, BC CTV (formerly CIVT) has gone through a number of changes since becoming the regional CTV station last September, including growing the viewership of its news at 6 p.m. nearly 700% from spring 2001 to spring 2002, according the BBM Spring 2002 Ratings Report. The audience jumped from 9,500 viewers to 75,800 during that period, moving it from a distant number four in the market to a solid number two where it currently sits.

While the station also has the benefit of tried-and-true CTV national programming such as Canada AM and its national news at 11 p.m., Tom Walters, news director for BC CTV, says its strong local reporters and anchors are really the foundation for its success.

Typically CTV goes after the 25-to-54 demographic, says Walters, so although BC CTV hopes to attract some disenfranchised CKVU viewers from Citytv, he doesn't believe the station will be competing with CityPulse for the same type of viewers.

He does welcome City and CityPulse to the market and sees it as an alternative that defines, creates and attracts its own audience.

"We all welcome the presence of Citytv here. What we've seen in Toronto is that Citytv has been able to develop a niche audience and they've certainly carved out their own territory in Toronto. What they've been over the years is a mainstream news alternative.

"We're happy to see Citytv emerge from its cocoon and complete the realignment that been going on in the market for this last year. It completes the puzzle and things can settle down now. I think it's been quite a struggle for viewers to keep track of who's who."