BNN was established on September 1, 1999 as Report on Business Television (RoBTV) under a joint venture of Thomson Corporation, the owners of The Globe and Mail newspaper, Western International Communications and Cancom.

Canwest, the owners of Global Television Network, acquired WIC in 2000 while Thomson transferred the shares of its channel to Bell Globemedia where it has been solely owned since 2001.

The network was licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 1996 to a joint venture of Thomson Corporation (50%), Western International Communications (25%) and Cancom (25%).

The same year, the owners came into conflict with each other: Canwest acquired the Southam newspaper chain, including the National Post, the Globe's chief rival, while Thomson transferred the Globe and its shares of ROBTv to Bell Globemedia, a newly formed media company which also included CTV, in which Thomson held a 20% interest.

[8] During the week of September 3, BNN Bloomberg celebrated it's 25th anniversary with visits from former hosts Frances Horodelski, Marty Cej, Kim Parlee, Bruce Sellery, Pat Kiernan and Ali Velshi.

In addition to its homebase in Toronto, BNN also operates news bureaus located at the NASDAQ Market Site in New York City's Times Square, and in Calgary.

BNN attracts approximately 5,000 regular viewers daily and has a strong viewership outside of the home (such as in gyms, restaurants and offices) which is not reflected in its ratings.

[citation needed] In March 2016, ratings data from Numeris showed BNN had an average weekly reach of more than 1 million viewers since December 2015.

In the fall of 2006, Report on Business Television hosted its first "Live On Location" event in Toronto during which a studio audience was featured during two of the network's most popular shows, Market Call with Jim O'Connell and SqueezePlay with Kim Parlee and Andrew Bell.

[12] On June 26, 2024 the CRTC approved the sale of CKOC and the BNN Bloomberg Radio feed officially ended on August 19, 2024.