7th Heaven Promo The New PL (CFPL) 2003

 CFPL first came on the air on November 28, 1953, with four hours of programming per day. That night, there was a major fire in London, on which CFPL's news program was able to report almost immediately during its first news hour. The station's transmitter was originally located atop the 500-foot (152 m) CFPL Television Tower, which was completed that year.

CFPL was the second privately-owned station in Canada (CKSO-TV in Sudbury, now CICI-TV, was the first). Its news program was the first to be scheduled at 6:00 p.m., during "the supper hour", which set the standard for other stations in Canada. In 1973, the station expanded its supper-hour news to a full hour. CFPL also later became one of the first in Canada to broadcast in color. From the day it began broadcasting, CFPL was affiliated with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

CFPL was the CBC's largest private affiliate but wanted to produce and broadcast more local programming. This caused its relations with CBC to worsen over the years. CBC required affiliates like CFPL to carry a minimum amount of its schedule, and, according to station management, CBC programming was less lucrative by that time. Nonetheless, CFPL was a very successful station and posted good profits. It finally disaffiliated with CBC and went independent on September 4, 1988. 

With no CBC programming, such as The National and Hockey Night in Canada to attract viewers, ratings plummeted and so did revenues. By the end of 1989, the station was almost bankrupt but tried to hang on as an independent station for another few years, even though its programming schedule did not have much beyond the news to attract viewership.

In 1992, amid poor ratings and low revenues, the station was sold to Baton Broadcasting. In 1994, the various Baton stations, including CFPL, merged to form first "Ontario Network Television", then renamed Baton Broadcast System. Baton greatly increased CFPL's news department, hiring dozens of people and rebranding the newscast as News Now. While Baton focused much of energy on news programming, it cut much non-news local programming from many stations, including CFPL. 

In 1997, Baton sold CFPL and some of its other television stations to CHUM Limited. Under CHUM, CFPL joined the NewNet system and was accordingly rebranded "The New PL" in September 1998. 

In February 2005, CHUM announced plans to consolidate the master control operations for CFPL, CKVR, CHRO, CHWI and CKNX at 299 Queen Street West in Toronto, and consolidating the traffic and programming departments at CFPL in London, resulting in the loss of approximately 13 staff members from CFPL. On June 3, 2005, the London master control signal came to an end, as the new consolidated master control took to air.

On August 2, 2005, CFPL was rebranded as A-Channel as part of CHUM Limited's rebranding of the NewNet stations. While Craig Media's A-Channel stations merged into Citytv following CHUM's acquisition of Craig Media in 2004. NewsNow at Noon was canceled one month earlier. On July 12, 2006, CTV owner CTVglobemedia announced plans to purchase A-Channel owner CHUM Limited with plans to divest itself of the A-Channel stations.

On June 22, 2007, all of the CHUM Limited channels (with the exception of Citytv) were officially taken over by CTVglobemedia. 

On August 11, 2008, CFPL was rebranded as A as part of CTVglobemedia's rebranding of the A-Channel stations. A rebranding campaign began earlier in June 2008 with newscasts being referred to by the station's employees as A News. Following the closure of sister station, CKNX-TV in Wingham on August 31, 2009, that station became a repeater of CFPL.

On September 10, 2010, BCE announced plans to re-acquire 100% of CTVglobemedia's broadcasting arm, including CFPL, and on April 1, 2011, Bell Canada finalized its purchase of the assets of CTVglobemedia it did not already own, with CFPL (along with the rest of the A system) officially becoming part of Bell Media.

On May 30, 2011, Bell Media announced that the A television stations, including CFPL, would be rebranded as CTV Two on August 29, 2011.