In May 1992, Baton Broadcasting agreed to purchase two television stations in southwestern Ontario: CFPL-TV in London and CKNX-TV in Wingham from The Blackburn Group.

[1] Three months later, Baton applied to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to build a third television station, primarily a rebroadcaster of CFPL-TV, near Wheatley to serve Windsor and Chatham.

The new Wheatley transmitter, on channel 16, would air up to 6+1⁄2 hours of locally-oriented programming a week, including a local newscast, produced from London for the Windsor–Chatham area.

[2] The new station, given the call sign CHWI-TV, would be an affiliate of Baton's regional Ontario Network Television system and carry Toronto Blue Jays baseball.

[7][8] In spite of the 1994 projections, Baton was able to speed construction,[9] Transmitter testing began September 1, providing Windsor with a similar picture quality to the Global repeater at Stevenson, and a Grade-A contour in areas such as Chatham and Leamington.

In Windsor, the station had offices at Goyeau Street and Riverside Drive, housing a studio for inserts into the newscasts, and 14 people in the newsroom, plus two more in Chatham.

[17] Reception from the Wheatley transmitter site proved to be an issue in the Windsor city centre, and many television antennas in this area were aimed northwest toward Southfield, Michigan, where most Detroit TV stations have their towers.

In August 1994, Baton applied to the CRTC for authority to build a rebroadcaster on channel 6 atop the Victoria Park Place condominium, which already housed the microwave transmission link between Windsor and London.

In exchange, CHUM received a series of secondary stations in Ontario that were redundant to the CTV network: CFPL-TV, CKNX-TV, CHWI-TV, and CHRO-TV serving Pembroke and Ottawa.

[26] On September 1, 1999, CHWI relocated from its original studios at Riverside and Goyeau to a higher-visibility downtown location at 300 Ouellette Avenue, occupying a former Laurentian Bank.

[33] In June 2003, the news portion of CHWI's newscasts began to originate from Windsor, though weather and sports continued to be presented from London.

[38] Less than a year after the rebrand, CTV announced its intention to shut down CHWI-TV and CKNX-TV when their licence terms expired at the end of August 2009.

Shaw Communications agreed on April 30, 2009, to buy CHWI-TV, CKNX-TV, and CKX-TV in Brandon, Manitoba, for one dollar each, pending CRTC approval.

[45] On July 6, 2009, the CRTC announced decisions to bolster the availability of local program funding and consider a fee-for-carriage model, prompting CTVglobemedia to "review" its plans for CHWI.

[49] Alongside the relaunch came the rebranding of CHWI's newscasts as CTV News Windsor and the establishment of a high-definition feed for its new digital signal.