The station first signed on the air on September 28, 1955; it was founded by Ralph Snelgrove, whose first initial and that of his wife, Valerie, form part of the station's callsign. It originally operated as a privately owned affiliate of CBC Television. In 1969, the station was purchased by CHUM Limited, becoming one of the first television stations owned by the company.
Once the CN Tower in Toronto was completed in 1976, atop which CBC flagship CBLT (channel 5) transmits from, the signal coverage areas of CKVR and CBLT overlapped considerably. CKVR management began to consider a different course for the station that took several years to become realized. By the late 1980s, programming outside of CBC and local news was mostly classic reruns such as I Love Lucy, Star Trek, The Addams Family and others, to the point where the station was often branded as CKVR Classic Television. Thanks to the acquisition of Toronto's CITY-TV by CHUM in 1979, CKVR was (technically) part of a twinstick, and Citytv programming began to air in limited timeslots.
Eventually, the station's financial situation became untenable; then-general manager Doug Garraway explained in a presentation to the CRTC in spring 1994, "the CBC no longer wants us, in point of fact we can no longer afford to remain affiliated with them." CKVR was expected to have lost $5 million by the end of 1995. As a result, the station made the decision to drop CBC programming and go in a new direction.
On September 1, 1995, CKVR ended its affiliation with the CBC and converted into an independent station as "The New VR", and began targeting its programming towards younger viewers. As part of the relaunch, newscasts were overhauled to be similar in format to Toronto sister station CITY-TV, classic shows were dropped in favor of newer programs (including, among others, the syndicated Action Pack block, the short-lived newsmagazine Day and Date, and encore presentations of Citytv's original productions, like CityLine and MovieTelevision; cross-promotion between both stations also commenced), and the station became an official broadcaster of the Toronto Raptors NBA franchise (sharing coverage with Citytv). Over $1 million was invested into new equipment for the station.
The new direction was successful—as CHUM Limited began replicating CKVR's format on its other stations, including several that it had acquired from Baton Broadcasting in 1997 (including CHRO-TV in Pembroke, CHWI-TV in Wheatley, CFPL-TV in London and CKNX-TV in Wingham), which formed the basis for a television system originally known as NewNet. At various times during the late 1990s and early 2000s, CKVR also broadcast mid-week games from the Raptors, as well as games from the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs and Raptors games were carried on all of NewNet's stations across Ontario with the exception of CHRO-TV, which did not carry Maple Leafs games due to the fact that CHRO is in the home market of the Ottawa Senators. CKVR also broadcast WWF Monday Night Raw for a time in the late 1990s as well.
In the early 2000s, plans were being created for CKVR to move from their original facility to a new, state-of-the-art broadcast center in Barrie's historic Allandale Station, much as other CHUM properties had street-side studios located in city centers. CHUM purchased the 6.9 acres (28,000 m2) of land, including the station buildings, for C$1,050,000 in 2000. CHUM planned to restore the Allandale Station building as part of their plan, but changed their plan in 2004. In 2007, CHUM agreed to sell the property to the City for the same amount CHUM originally paid. CHUM received a Charitable Donation tax receipt reflecting the increased value of the property since 2000 largely due to the restoration and site works completed by CHUM.
In February 2005, CHUM announced plans to consolidate the master control departments for CKVR, CFPL, CHRO, CHWI and CKNX at 299 Queen Street West in Toronto (which housed most of CHUM's television services including MuchMusic and CP24 and had also housed the operations for Toronto television station, CITY-TV at the time), and to consolidate the traffic and programming departments of the other stations at CFPL's facilities in London, resulting in the loss of approximately nine staff members from CKVR. Those operations were migrated to the Toronto facilities on June 3, 2005.
