The city's Chamber of Commerce approved the deal, feeling that the market was lacking in a television station that was distinctly Canadian in nature.

In 1956, American industrial and communications firm General Tire and Rubber purchased a controlling interest in Western Ontario Broadcasting.

Its lineup was similar to the programming on RKO's two American independent stations, WOR-TV in New York City (now MyNetworkTV O&O WWOR-TV in Secaucus, New Jersey) and KHJ-TV in Los Angeles (now KCAL-TV).

Due to the show's connection to Detroit's popular rock-and-roll AM radio stations, Swingin' Time was used by many artists, especially local acts such as The Supremes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, the MC5, and Mitch Ryder, to reach a substantially larger teen audience than they could have achieved through solely working the record hop circuit.

Western Ontario Broadcasting's licence to operate the stations was renewed for only one year, and in 1969, General Tire decided to get out altogether rather than accept a 20 percent share.

St. Clair River was granted a five-year licence by the CRTC to operate the station, after which Baton would sell full ownership to the CBC.

After its sale, CKLW-TV also produced a significant amount of local programming that ranged from music and variety to daytime talk, sports, agriculture, current affairs and documentaries.

[5] The Baton/CBC partnership in CKLW-TV ended in May 1975 when, per the original 1970 arrangement, the CBC purchased Baton's 75 percent ownership stake in St. Clair River Broadcasting.

The station's schedule did not change much early on; it still featured the same formula of CBC and CTV programs, along with British and American television shows (mostly reruns and movies) with Detroit rights.

CBET also carried some special programming aimed at American viewers, such as the annual Weekend With the Stars telethon for United Cerebral Palsy in the early 1980s.

A "Save Our Station" committee was formed and politicians on every level lobbied both CBC and the Canadian government to preserve the Windsor operation.

Only three reporters remained at CBET, who produced stories for the early evening newscast on Toronto sister station CBLT.

This meant videojournalists (cross-skilling) multi-skilling, and the use of non-linear editing technology (AVID newscutters and air-play for news item playback).

This group made up of managers and union reps oversaw the progress of the "experiment" and dealt with issues that arose on an almost weekly basis.

On September 8, 2014, it was announced that the CBC would be selling its Riverside Drive studio complex to Clayland Developments Ltd. of London, Ontario for $1,425,000.

During Hockey Night in Canada, CBET often aired games involving the Detroit Red Wings in lieu of Ontario's designated game when available, during both the regular season and the playoffs (such as a Western Conference quarter-final series in 2006 against the Edmonton Oilers, many of which were originally designated to air regionally on Edmonton's CBC station CBXT).

in the fall of 2012, some evening programming variations remain, with Rick Mercer Report at 5 p.m., various programming (specials, documentaries, and repeats of other shows) at 5:30 p.m., and the one-hour 6 p.m. local newscast, with the remainder of the schedule in pattern with the other CBC stations (including Coronation Street, which is reduced to a single episode weeknights at 7:30 p.m. on the CBC network).

On October 2, 2000, local news programming on CBET and other CBC owned-and-operated stations was reduced to a half-hour each weeknight, and late newscasts were cancelled.

With the introduction of Canada Now (which began at CBET before it went national), CBC's new hybrid hour-long dinnertime newscast at 6 p.m. made its debut.

Prior to the 2006 format change, Canada Now was last locally anchored by Susan Pedler with Tony Doucette from a state-of-the-art news set inside the CBET newsroom.

On November 30, 2006, CBC announced plans to discontinue Canada Now in February 2007, in favour of hour-long early evening local newscasts on its stations.

In September 2009, most CBC stations began to carry a 90-minute block of local news from 5 to 6:30 p.m. each weeknight; however, CBET opted to keep its hour-long newscast at 6 p.m.

During a carriage dispute with the market's local NBC affiliate WNWO-TV, Buckeye temporarily moved CBET to WNWO's standard and high-definition channel allotments to ensure that viewers would still have access to coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

This ended when Time Warner Cable (now Charter Spectrum) dropped CBET as well as Columbus' CBS affiliate, WBNS-TV, from its Northwestern Ohio systems.