While patterned after the original station in Toronto, since the 2000s, and particularly since its acquisition by Rogers, Citytv has moved towards a series-based prime time schedule much like its competitors', albeit one still focused on younger demographics.

The licence of the original Citytv station, granted the callsign of CITY-TV by the CRTC, was awarded in Toronto on November 25, 1971, by Channel Seventy-Nine Ltd., which consisted of – among others – Phyllis Switzer, Moses Znaimer, Jerry Grafstein and Edgar Cowan.

Multiple Access Ltd. (the owners of CFCF-TV in Montreal) purchased a 45% interest in the station, and sold its stake to CHUM Limited, the parent company of CKVR-TV in Barrie, Ontario, in 1978.

CITY-TV's groundbreaking format became successful when CHUM dropped CKVR's longtime affiliation with CBC Television on September 1, 1995[4] and relaunched it as an independent station.

[5][6] Eventually, CHUM began to replicate the format when it acquired four Ontario stations from Baton Broadcasting in 1997, namely CHRO in Pembroke, CFPL-TV in London, CKNX-TV in Wingham, and CHWI-TV in Windsor.

Until 1997, CHUM owned two television outlets in Atlantic Canada: the ATV system of CTV affiliates, and cable-only channel ASN.

This means that Atlantic Canada is now the largest gap in City's local coverage area, and there are few remaining realistic options for Rogers to purchase or affiliate with existing stations in the region.

This had led Rogers to attempt, unsuccessfully, to request simultaneous substitution privileges for Citytv Toronto on its cable systems in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.

[7] Prior to the CRTC's decision to refuse the request, Rogers had hinted that a similar agreement had been tentatively reached with EastLink, the main cable provider in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

The WIC stations in Alberta (including CITV-TV and CICT-TV) bought provincial rights to some Citytv programs prior to the launch of CKAL and CKEM in 1997.

[12] The move came more than a month after the CRTC denied CHUM's applications for new Calgary and Edmonton stations, which they applied back in 2003, because the market did not have sufficient advertising revenue to support a new entrant.

It laid off 281 part- and full-time employees, effectively cancelleing its supper-hour, late-night and weekend newscasts, laying off hundreds of news department staff among 281 job cuts.

In a coincidental development, that same day, BCE Inc., owner of Bell Globemedia and the parent company of CTV, announced it would buy CHUM Limited.

[26] On December 6, 2010, CityNews Tonight Toronto anchor and continuity announcer Mark Dailey died after a long battle with cancer.

[30] The Jim Pattison Group announced in July 2009 that its three television stations in western Canada (CKPG-TV, CFJC-TV, and CHAT-TV), formerly affiliated with E!, would join Citytv starting on September 1, 2009.

The deal gave the Citytv system stations in all provinces west of Quebec and south of the federal territories of Northern Canada.

Many of these series were not exclusively focused on Toronto – FT, for instance, consisted largely of foreign runway footage – and are easily syndicated to other outlets.

CITY prominently broadcast feature films during primetime, in late night and on weekends as part of the Great Movies block; as Citytv transitioned to a primetime lineup consisting of mainly domestic and American series during the 2000s, Great Movies was scaled back, then replaced in 2008 by reruns, reality shows and infomercials.

The station attracted attention and controversy by airing The Baby Blue Movie, a softcore pornography film showcase on Friday nights after midnight.

This, along with the 'hide away' place on the UHF dial formed the basis of fictional station "CIVIC TV" (Channel 83, Cable 12) in David Cronenberg's Videodrome, which is set in Toronto.

Beginning in 1983, Citytv began to produce a New Year's Eve special live from Nathan Phillips Square in Downtown Toronto.

However, Citytv itself was unsuccessful in expanding its audience to other Canadian markets, as evidenced by the eventual cancellation of the other stations' traditional newscasts.

Four of City's five other owned-and-operated broadcast stations (CKVU-DT, CKAL-DT, CKEM-DT and CHMI-DT) only produce localized versions of the morning program franchise Breakfast Television.

Due to the structural problems facing the conventional television industry in Canada and the Great Recession, Rogers Media announced cost-cutting measures at the Citytv stations on January 19, 2010, which included massive layoffs and the cancellation of the following newscasts: CITY-DT used to operate CP24, a cable news channel covering the Greater Toronto Area.

The network was modelled on Rogers-owned radio station CFTR 680, and featured news, weather, traffic reports, and other content drawing from the resources of Rogers properties such as Maclean's and Sportsnet.

[44][45][46] In 2015, Rogers cancelled the Winnipeg and Edmonton editions of Breakfast Television; in Winnipeg, it was replaced by a simulcast of the morning show from co-owned radio station CITI-FM, and the Edmonton edition was replaced by the spin-off Dinner Television, an evening newsmagazine and discussion program which did not feature original news reporting.

Like most Canadian networks, Citytv stations are generally available as distant signals on most cable and satellite providers nationwide.

It is also available for free over-the-air using a regular TV antenna and a digital tuner (included in most new television sets) via the following stations and retransmitters: Video on demand access to Citytv programming has been available in various forms, such as through TV provider's set-top boxes, or streaming media through the network's website and mobile apps.

[64] On January 1, 2025, Rogers's authenticated streaming platform was relaunched under the Citytv+ name, replacing the separate websites and mobile apps for Citytv and FX/FXX.

Access to Rogers's newly-launched Warner Bros. Discovery-branded channels was added to both this platform and the Prime Video add-on at this time.