BCE sold the majority of its interest in 2006 (after which the company was renamed CTVglobemedia Inc. in 2007), but in 2011, BCE acquired the entire company (excluding The Globe and Mail) and changed the name to Bell Media Inc. For all practical purposes, Bell Media is the successor to Baton Broadcasting Incorporated (/ˈbeɪtɒn/ BAY-ton), which by the late 1990s had become one of Canada's largest broadcasters.

Formed in 1960 as Baton Aldred Rogers Broadcasting Ltd., the company was originally created to establish Toronto's first private television station, CFTO-TV.

It started this drive with a further expansion into Saskatchewan, purchasing CKCK-TV in Regina, Yorkton twinstick CKOS-TV/CICC-TV, and CBC affiliate CKBI-TV Prince Albert.

[8] Baton now held controlling interest in CTV, triggering a put option that allowed the other owners to sell their stakes in the network while still keeping their stations.

The sale was approved by the CRTC March 24, 2000, but CTV had to divest either Netstar's TSN or their own Sportsnet; they chose to sell the latter to Rogers.

[11][12][13] This venture was masterminded by former Bell Canada chief executive Jean Monty, largely as a response to Canwest's purchase of the Southam newspaper chain as well as the trend of media convergence, particularly the AOL-Time Warner merger.

[14] Soon after, Monty arranged to have Thomson Corporation transfer control of The Globe and Mail, the Toronto-based national newspaper, to BCE in exchange for a significant interest (20%) in the merged CTV/Globe entity.

The resulting company (Bell Globemedia) consisted of CTV, The Globe and Mail, and the Internet portal then known as Sympatico-Lycos (Lycos was later replaced by MSN).

However, beginning in 2003, BCE management began to refer to BGM as a non-core asset; as a result, much attention was given to the likely sale of the company, and potentially a breakup into several different pieces.

Torstar insisted it was committed to maintaining the editorial independence of the Globe and its own Toronto Star, and ultimately there were no major regulatory hurdles due to this.

Rogers purchased several of these assets, including CTV's 33% interest in OLN in late 2007, as well as radio stations CHST-FM in London, Ontario and CHBN-FM in Edmonton, Alberta in 2010.

It was renamed as Bell Media Inc.[26] On December 9, 2011, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan announced the sale of its majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment to BCE and its rival, Rogers Communications, in a deal valued at around $1.32 billion.

The acquisition was primarily centered on Astral's premium services (such as The Movie Network and its stake in HBO Canada) and its French-language radio and television stations.

The move came following allegations reported by The Globe and Mail that, after the CRTC's March 2015 decision to mandate that pay television providers offer a la carte packages, Crull ordered all Bell-owned news properties, including CTV News, not to air any remarks by CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais during reports regarding the decision.

CTV News president Wendy Freeman, Ottawa bureau chief Robert Fife, and the program's anchor Lisa LaFlamme felt that the inclusion of remarks by Blais was necessary due to the nature of the story.

[47] On November 17, 2015, further cuts were made, which included high-profile on-air talent from radio and television properties in Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver.

[49] On January 6, 2016, iHeartMedia announced that it had partnered with Bell Media to launch a localized version of its online radio service iHeartRadio Canada.

[52][53][54] On January 31, 2017, Bell Media announced that it planned to perform another round of layoffs in 24 locations, citing various developments across Canada's broadcasting industry, as well as the impact of recent regulatory decisions (such as one that prevents the federal simsub rules from being used on the Super Bowl, whose Canadian broadcast rights are currently owned by Bell Media).

[56] That month, Bell also announced that it had partnered with record executive Scott Borchetta to develop a new, international television format that would "uncover, develop, and promote pop culture's next musical superstars", and "leverage Bell Media's massive reach and extensive platforms to showcase musicians on the national and international stage.

[58] On June 7, 2017, Wow Unlimited Media announced that it would acquire a specialty channel from the company (later revealed to be Comedy Gold; however, the sale would later be aborted, leading to the channel's shutdown in 2019)[59] to form a new network targeting children and young adults, and provide children's television content for Bell's over-the-top ventures.

[61] On October 17, 2017, Bell Media announced its intent to acquire Historia and Séries+—two French-language networks whose Astral-owned stakes were divested during its acquisition by Bell—from Corus Entertainment for $200 million.

[62] On May 28, 2018, both transactions were blocked by the Competition Bureau, citing a condition on the Bell/Astral deal which forbade Bell from re-acquiring properties divested in the sale for 10 years after its completion.

[67] In May 2018, Bell Media announced that it, along with several other parties, would contribute French-language content to Radio-Canada's subscription streaming service Ici Tou.tv Extra.

[74] On July 24, 2019, Bell announced its intent to acquire the French-language broadcast television network V from V Media Group pending CRTC approval, as well as its streaming outlet Noovo.

[83] This in turn was followed in early February by the elimination of hundreds of rank-and-file positions, including at least 210 in the company's Toronto offices alone, the removal of dedicated newsrooms for news-talk radio stations CJAD Montreal and CFRB Toronto, and the reformatting of three TSN Radio outlets as automated business news or comedy stations with little locally produced content.

[86] They were also widely seen as indicating a corporate shift in focus away from traditional media outlets and towards Bell's streaming services like Crave and iHeartRadio.

[81][82] However, observers including Unifor, the main labour union representing Bell employees, questioned the need for the layoffs, given that parent company BCE had accepted $122 million in assistance through the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy in 2020, while being able to increase its dividend payments to shareholders.

[88] BCE blamed a number of industry changes and increasing losses in its news divisions for the cuts, while questioning the regulatory priorities of the federal government and the CRTC; one BCE executive mentioned having waited for reforms on some items for years, while also citing "relentless regulatory intervention" by the CRTC to cut wireless and Internet service pricing.

[88] In June 2023, The Globe and Mail reported that after the controversial dismissal of long-time CTV National News anchor Lisa LaFlamme in 2022, Oosterman was recorded urging news managers from its CTV, BNN, CP24 properties to get their journalists to "help" by providing favourable coverage when reporting on Bell as long as it did not "distort reality".

[94] On February 8, 2024, BCE announced that it would cut 4,800 positions (10% of which coming from Bell Media), citing declining revenues, and new CRTC requirements mandating that the company offer wholesale access to its fibreoptic telecom networks to competitors.