All pay television (cable, satellite, IPTV) providers throughout Ontario are required to carry TVO on their basic tier, and programming can be streamed for free online within Canada.

Instead of following the model of the federally owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)'s television services, which shows commercial advertisements, TVO chose a commercial-free model similar to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States (in fact, various TVO productions wound up being aired on PBS stations).

This model was later emulated by provincial educational broadcasters Télé-Québec in Quebec and Knowledge Network in British Columbia.

TVO used to operate TFO (Télévision française de l'Ontario), a separate but similar network for Franco-Ontarian audiences.

The CBC, acting on behalf of OECA, applied for and won a licence for the ministry's television station in Toronto.

In 1972, the station moved its operations to a new studio facility at 2180 Yonge Street in the Canada Square Complex, where it remains.

[4] The station's broadcast name was "OECA", sharing the name of its parent organization, but began using the on-air brand "TVOntario" (and later just TVO) beginning in 1974.

Therefore actors, journalists or writers were hired to provide commentary on shows aired by TVO that would place them within an educational context.

For instance, Tom Grattan's War was bookmarked by segments hosted by Andrea Martin that would use scenes from the series to discuss filmmaking techniques.

Episodes of The Prisoner were hosted by journalist Warner Troyer whose segments included interviews with the actors and a discussion of various psychological, philosophical or sociological themes regarding the series.

Saturday Night at the Movies continued to follow this format long after the requirement was dropped because of the popularity of its host, Elwy Yost.

The Belleville, Chatham and Cloyne transmitters were converted to digital on new frequencies (but without high-definition, an on-channel program guide or other DTV-specific features), as channels 52 to 69 were being reallocated for wireless communication purposes.

Download coordinates as: On January 25, 2017, TVO announced it would be shutting down eight of its nine remaining transmitters (a mere 5½ years after converting them to digital), leaving only CICA-DT at Toronto's CN Tower in operation to maintain their current license.

[18] Critics of the decision, including the group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, said that the changes would affect people who have no other options for accessing content.

In April 2017, ISED required TVO to move its newly-digital retransmitters serving Belleville, Chatham, Cloyne, Kitchener, and Windsor from out of the 600 MHz band between 2019 and 2020 as part of the related spectrum pack.

On April 17, 2020, the CRTC granted TVO permission to decrease its Chatham transmitter's maximum effective radiated power (ERP) from 2,250 to 1,000 watts.

Where TVO owned sites, it provided local communities the option of taking ownership of the towers and transmitters.

TVO is willing to consent to cable and satellite distributors carrying our signal outside the province, provided that we're fairly compensated.

Since cable or satellite distributors receive subscriber revenues driven by having TVO as part of their offering, we feel it's reasonable to be compensated.

It is unknown if the dispute or carriage restrictions also apply to the few cable systems in the United States that carry TVO.