TV anchors often have a skyline panorama behind them, as if the studio they’re broadcasting from is on the 10th floor of a building just outside downtown. In Toronto, one could be forgiven for thinking Centre Island is a busy studio district.

The actual view from many TV stations is far less glamorous. TV takes space to make and industrial areas are more appealing. When Joan Rivers arrived at Pearson Airport for one of her many appearances on the Shopping Channel, she was taken to a factory-like building on Hurontario Rd., north of the 401 in Mississauga, far from the red carpets she was often found on.

Global broadcasts from a former factory on Barber Greene Rd. in Don Mills, though they, along with parent company Shaw Media, maintain a downtown studio on Bloor St., just east of Yonge St.

CTV’s broadcast centre is more prominent, overlooking busy Hwy. 401 in Agincourt, across from the Scarborough Town Centre. Located on Channel Nine Court, named after local station CFTO, the jagged mid-century concrete canopy over the front entrance seems designed to look good while speeding by on the 401. What could be more modern than TV signals and expressways together, comfortable here in the city that media theorist Marshall McLuhan called home.

While TSN also broadcasts from the CTV location, rival Sportsnet moved into the Rogers headquarters at the corner of Jarvis and Isabella Sts. When the window blinds are up, technicians and editors can be seen at panels underneath big screens, a kind of mission control, or master control in broadcast-speak, for sports. Rogers also has its own factory-like satellite studio on York Mills Rd. east of Leslie St., where local Cable 10 content is produced.

Along the backside of the downtown Rogers Campus is Huntley St., a name made famous by the Christian talk show 100 Huntley Street, which was filmed here at an address that no longer exists. The talk show eventually relocated to the Crossroads centre in Burlington, but kept the old address alive.

Other TV studios are hidden in plain view, like TVO, with a prominent position on Yonge St. south of Eglinton Ave., but mostly encased within the concrete of the lower floors of the Canada Square building. When watching The Agenda, know that host Steve Paikin and his guests can feel the subway rumble underneath their feet during the program.

The CBC has its own special relationship with Toronto geography. Until the postmodern broadcasting mother ship was opened at Front and John Sts. in 1992, the CBC was spread over nearly two-dozen buildings across Toronto.

CBC’s Toronto headquarters was on Jarvis St., in the old Havergal College buildings, now home to the Canadian National Ballet School. The Staples shop on Yonge St. at Marlborough Ave., originally the showroom for Pierce Arrow luxury automobiles, was used as a CBC TV studio from the mid-1950s onwards where old programs such as Wayne and Shuster and Front Page Challenge were shot. Props were stored at what is now a rather lovely loft condo conversion at 90 Sumach St., just off of Queen St. E.

Even CBC Radio’s Metro Morning had a quirky studio, broadcasting from the stage of the former theatre at 509 Parliament St. in Cabbagetown for its first 20 years. This location has also become a dance school, coincidentally.

Then there’s City TV and Moses Znaimer, who deserve credit for bringing the TV factory downtown and busting open the walls, and it’s Queen St. W. location is often credited with pioneering the kind of street-level broadcasting that is common in New York and elsewhere now, with anchors in view of actual sidewalks.

Perhaps the old City Pulse truck bursting out of the wall with its spinning tires can be seen as a memorial to how Toronto kept television grounded in the city’s geography.

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