Anton Koschany

W5 is a Canadian news magazine television program that was produced by CTV News.

The program was broadcast on CTV, with repeat broadcasts on CTV 2, CTV News Channel, and Investigation Discovery.

The program also aired in a radio simulcast on CFRB in Toronto.

The title refers to the Five Ws of journalism: Who, What, Where, When and Why?

It was the longest-running news magazine/documentary program in North America and the most-watched program of its type in Canada.

In February 2024, the program was cancelled by CTV as part of cuts by its parent company.

W5 will continue to be used as a brand for investigative journalism features on CTV News programs.

At the time of its cancellation as a television series in 2024, W5 was the longest-running current affairs/newsmagazine program in North America, and the third longest-running Canadian television program.

It was launched as W5 on September 11, 1966, just after the demise of CBC Television's This Hour Has Seven Days, at a time when the CTV network was on the brink of bankruptcy.

The program's magazine format is considered an inspiration for a number of similar programs, including the American program 60 Minutes which premiered two years later.

The program's first executive producer and host was Peter Reilly.

He quit only a few weeks into the first season of W5, in a dispute with John Bassett, who owned the CTV network's biggest station, CFTO-TV in Toronto.

Reilly went on to become the first host of the CBC's later current affairs offering, The Fifth Estate.

During the 1970s, Henry Champ was a longtime host, along with Ken Lefolii and Tom Gould.

Helen Hutchinson, who also hosted during the 1970s (concurrent with her tenure as co-host of the morning show Canada AM), was one of the first women to gain a prominent position in television news in Canada.

For a period of time in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the program's introductory theme music used part of "Fool's Overture", a song by the UK band Supertramp.

Jim Reed joined the programme in 1972 as a field producer and was later appointed as host along with Hutchinson and Champ.

Peter Rehak was executive producer through the 1980s and 1990s.

Eric Malling joined W5 in 1990 from CBC's rival news magazine, The Fifth Estate.

In 1991, a new team of reporters also joined the program: Susan Ormiston, Christine Nielsen, and Elliott Shiff.

In 1993–94, an in-depth report on New Zealand showed the results of a nation that had suffered the effects of a debt wall.

The report had a significant influence and was used by governments to justify cutting social services.

The government of Alberta included transcripts of the program when it sent back rejected grant applications and Ontario Premier Bob Rae cited the program during cabinet debates on the deficit.

Author Linda McQuaig criticized the program saying: "It was just full of misinformation," saying that Malling distorted the situation in New Zealand by presenting what was really a short-term currency crisis as something else: national bankruptcy and the loss of credit.

The real issue - an overvalued currency - she says, was never brought up.

"I'm talking about confusing the issues," she says, "making people believe things that aren't true because that's the point that he wanted to make. You don't need to come out with a technical lie to do that."

Robert Hurst oversaw a revamping of the program look in the fall of 1995.

The program was called W5 with Eric Malling until Malling moved to hosting the television program Mavericks in 1995.

In 1996 for its 30th anniversary, the program was rebranded to W-FIVE and became more populist.

Hosts included top CTV journalists, including Lloyd Robertson, Craig Oliver and Jim O'Connell.

Fiona Conway became executive producer but left for ABC News in 1998.

Conway was succeeded by senior producer Ian McLeod and after he left Malcolm Fox became the executive producer from September 2000 until September 2009.

Since 2000, the program has officially been designated a "documentary series", with only one or two segments filling an hour-long episode, due to Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission regulations that count documentaries, but not older-style newsmagazines, as "priority programming".

Anton Koschany served as executive producer from 2009-2021, during which time the program moved into HD and produced an expanded number of episodes per season.

He was succeeded by current Executive Producer Derek Miller.

The program's first regular host was Ken Cavanagh, with reports from CTV National News journalists such as Doug Johnson and Frank Drea, who later became a Progressive Conservative member of Provincial Parliament in Ontario and Trina McQueen, later president of CTV.

With broadcast shifting to HD for the 2009–2010 season the program reverted to its traditional title W5 with a revised graphic treatment and a new theme that reflects its investigative nature and culminates in five notes representative of the five Ws of journalism.

Recent hosts have included Robertson, Sandie Rinaldo, Kevin Newman and Lisa LaFlamme (with Robertson continuing to co-host following his 2011 retirement as anchor of the CTV National News until 2016 when he was named special correspondent).

W5 has produced such stories as a possible cure for multiple sclerosis ("The Liberation Treatment"), an investigation into fatal shootings by RCMP officers (nominated for a Michener Award), an investigation of abuses at the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children ("The Throwaway Children"), an annual expose of used car dealer trickery, rampant corruption in Canada's immigration system, and personal stories of burn recovery from the Bali bombing.

In the 2012–2013 season, the program began experimenting with loosening the format, with occasional three story episodes.