MONTREAL - Earlier this year CTV Montreal turned 50 years old. To celebrate, we've given ourselves a gift: a brand new studio for our news broadcasts.

Studio 12 made its debut with the noon show on Tuesday Sept. 6, 2011.

The new street level area features a backdrop that offers a view of the intersection of Rene Levesque and Papineau, which is prominently displayed when anchors Mutsumi Takahashi and Todd van der Heyden interview guests during their 'Newsmaker' segments every weekday.

While the audience at home gets to look out, passers-by in the neighbourhood will get to look in.

"CTV Montreal has earned its reputation as a community leader by engaging with the people of this city," said Don Bastien, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, CTV Montreal. "We are delighted to launch a storefront studio that looks out onto our city, and helps reflect the energy of Montreal in our newscasts."

While CTV Montreal news broadcasts are not yet in high-definition, the studio was built with HD in mind.

"We wanted to have various elements that I could shoot within the show so that it will not always look the same way and so the viewer will be more visually stimulated," says Dave Maynard, Operations Manager/Chief Director at CTV.

When the switch to HD happens, anticipated in 2012, "Viewers are going to see a crisper, cleaner image and a much more contemporary looking program," says Maynard.

The old CTV Montreal studio, which was first built more than a decade ago inside our old building on Ogilvy Ave. and transferred to the Rene Levesque location, was donated to Concordia University's Journalism Department.