Bell Media

• 1. Introduction

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  In June 2023, Bell Media's president Wade Oosterman was recorded telling news managers at CTV, BNN, and CP24 to give the company favourable coverage. He added one condition: the coverage should not "distort reality." The Globe and Mail broke the story, and the remarks seemed to clash with a journalistic independence policy the company had adopted in 2015. How did a single television station in Toronto grow into a company that now owns Canada's most watched network and a nationwide radio business? The path runs through decades of ownership fights, a failed media convergence experiment, and repeated rounds of layoffs. Each owner, from Toronto department store families to a national telecom, wanted control of Canadian screens for its own reasons.

• 2. Fighting For Control

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  Baton Aldred Rogers Broadcasting Ltd. formed in 1960 to launch CFTO-TV, Toronto's first private television station. The company's name came from its founders: the Bassett and Eaton families, plus broadcaster Joel Aldred and Ted Rogers. Foster Hewitt held a smaller stake too, though Aldred sold out in 1961 and Rogers followed by 1970.

  CFTO joined CTV as a charter affiliate in 1961 and quickly became the network's flagship station. When CTV reorganized as a station-owned cooperative in 1966, regulators worried Baton's size would let it dominate the group. The Board of Broadcast Governors approved the change only after the eight owners agreed each would get one vote, regardless of audience share. Buying another station would not add votes either, since an acquired station's shares were redistributed among the rest.

  By 1987, Baton was maneuvering to take over CTV outright, buying CKCK-TV in Regina and stations serving Yorkton and Prince Albert. An attempt to build a new station in Ottawa stalled in regulatory appeals, so Baton bought CJOH-TV from Standard Broadcasting instead. More purchases through the early 1990s in Ontario and Saskatchewan built Baton into the network's dominant shareholder.

  The 1996 alliance with Electrohome, owner of stations in Kitchener and Edmonton, doubled Baton's own stake in CTV to 28.6 percent. Because the deal also gave Baton control of Electrohome's vote, it now commanded 42.9 percent of the network's shares. A further swap with CHUM Limited in February 1997 traded stations for a 14.3 percent slice of CTV, pushing the alliance's hold to 57.2 percent.

  By late 1997, Baton held a controlling interest in CTV after buying out Electrohome's remaining stake. That triggered a put option letting the network's other owners cash out, and Baton bought the last shares from WIC and Moffat Communications that fall. The company renamed itself CTV Inc. in 1998, the same year the Eaton family sold its remaining 41 percent stake, valued around CA$450 million, to the public.

  In 1999, CTV Inc. acquired NetStar Communications, the former broadcasting arm of the Labatt Brewing Company, picking up sports network TSN. Regulators required CTV to give up one of its two sports channels, and it chose to sell Sportsnet to Rogers rather than keep both.

• 3. The Convergence Bet

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  In 2000, BCE acquired CTV Inc. in an all-cash deal worth CA$2.3 billion. Former Bell Canada chief executive Jean Monty engineered the purchase. He was answering Canwest's acquisition of the Southam newspaper chain and the AOL Time Warner merger, both signs of a media convergence trend.

  Monty believed BCE needed to control content to protect satellite provider Bell ExpressVu and internet service Bell Sympatico. He arranged for Thomson Corporation to hand over The Globe and Mail in exchange for a 20 percent stake in the merged company, named Bell Globemedia. The Thomson family's holding company, Woodbridge, later added a further 9.9 percent by investing directly.

  Ivan Fecan, a former CBC executive who had joined Baton years earlier, became Bell Globemedia's president and CEO, a post he held through the CTVglobemedia era that followed. Monty resigned in 2002 and was replaced by Michael Sabia, since his convergence vision was not delivering the results BCE wanted. Individual units, especially the CTV network, still performed well on their own.

  By 2005, Thomson's stake had grown to 31.5 percent, funding Bell Globemedia's purchase of 15 percent of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. On the 2nd of December 2005, BCE agreed to sell down its own position. Woodbridge received an 8.5 percent interest, Torstar 20 percent, and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan another 20 percent, while BCE kept 20 percent for itself. The sale closed on the 30th of August 2006, ending speculation that the company might be broken up entirely.

• 4. Buying And Selling Networks

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  On the 12th of July 2006, Bell Globemedia announced a friendly bid for CHUM Limited valued at an estimated $1.7 billion. The deal would bring Citytv, CablePulse24, MuchMusic, Star!, Bravo!, Space, and all of CHUM's radio stations into the fold. Bell Globemedia initially planned to shed several CHUM properties, including the A-Channel stations, MusiquePlus, and MusiMax.

  To help pay for the purchase, the company sold additional shares to existing shareholders on the 7th of September 2006. BCE chose not to participate, so Ontario Teachers' ownership rose to 25 percent while BCE's stake fell to 15 percent. That drop triggered a rename to CTVglobemedia Inc. on the 1st of January 2007.

  The CRTC approved the CHUM takeover that June, but only on condition that CTV sell off the Citytv stations. Rogers Communications was named the buyer of Citytv on the 11th of June 2007, and the CHUM acquisition itself closed eleven days later. In the end, CTV kept the A-Channel stations it had originally planned to sell, giving up only MusiquePlus and MusiMax.

  Over the following years, CTVglobemedia shed a string of smaller channels. Rogers bought its 33 percent stake in OLN in late 2007, and Corus Entertainment later paid a combined $113 million for Canadian Learning Television, Cooking Channel, and Drive-In Classics. Two stations went dark entirely: CKX-TV in Brandon, Manitoba left the air in October 2009, and CKNX-TV in Wingham shut down a month before it.

  On the 10th of September 2010, BCE moved to buy back full control of its broadcasting arm in a deal worth $3.2 billion. Woodbridge, Torstar, and Teachers' would split $1.3 billion in cash or BCE equity, while BCE also assumed $1.7 billion in debt. Woodbridge regained majority control of The Globe and Mail in a sale completed that December, separate from the broadcasting deal.

  The CRTC approved the broadcasting acquisition on the 7th of March 2011, and it closed officially on the 1st of April 2011. That same day, the company dropped the CTVglobemedia name and became Bell Media Inc. Barely eight months later, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan would sell its other major media holding, a stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.

• 5. The Astral Fight

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  On the 16th of March 2012, BCE agreed to acquire Montreal broadcaster Astral Media for an estimated $3.38 billion. The target was Astral's premium services, including The Movie Network and its stake in HBO Canada, plus its French-language radio and television stations. Bell wanted Astral's premium content to compete with Netflix and its French properties to challenge Quebecor Media's dominance.

  Rival cable providers Cogeco, EastLink, and Quebecor-owned Videotron opposed the merger, warning it would raise carriage fees for smaller companies. In October 2012, the CRTC rejected BCE's first proposal outright, ruling that the combined company would hold too much market power.

  A revised proposal, cleared by the Competition Bureau on the 18th of March 2013, had Bell sell off most of Astral's English-language channels. The original deal would have given Bell 42 percent of the English television market; the revised version capped it at 35.7 percent. Bell's French-language market share would still climb from 8 percent to 23 percent.

  The CRTC approved the acquisition on the 27th of June 2013, attaching conditions such as $246.9 million in Canadian programming investment over seven years. Bell had to give up channels including Family, Disney XD, both Disney Junior services, MusiMax, and MusiquePlus, along with five radio stations. Corus Entertainment picked up Historia, Series+, and Teletoon from the divested assets.

  That same month, Bravo became Bell's first network to offer a TV Everywhere service, letting subscribers stream video on demand through the Bravo Go app.

• 6. When Journalism And Business Collide

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  On the 9th of April 2015, Bell Media president Kevin Crull stepped down, replaced by Mary Ann Turcke, the company's former head of media sales. The move followed reports in The Globe and Mail that Crull had ordered Bell-owned news properties not to air remarks by CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais. Blais had just announced, that March, that pay television providers must offer channels a la carte, a decision Bell opposed.

  CTV News Channel's Power Play and local evening newscasts complied with Crull's order, but CTV National News defied it that same night. The national broadcast aired Blais's remarks anyway, with CTV News president Wendy Freeman, Ottawa bureau chief Robert Fife, and anchor Lisa LaFlamme judging the story required it. BCE chief executive George Cope called journalistic independence "of paramount importance to our company and to all Canadians."

  Turcke's own tenure drew criticism soon after, when she called the use of virtual private networks to access the American version of Netflix "stealing." That remark put her under scrutiny for a different reason than Crull's exit.

  In 2022, the company's dismissal of longtime CTV National News anchor Lisa LaFlamme drew wide public criticism. The controversy stayed attached to the company's leadership for years, feeding scrutiny of how Bell Media treated its own news division.

• 7. Waves Of Cuts

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  In August 2015, Bell Media began cutting jobs, starting with directors and vice presidents. On the 6th of November 2015, the company eliminated 380 positions in production, editorial, sales, and administration across Toronto and Montreal. Eleven days later, further cuts removed high-profile on-air talent from radio and television in Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver.

  On the 31st of January 2017, Bell Media announced another round of layoffs across 24 locations, citing regulatory decisions including one barring simultaneous substitution rules during the Super Bowl broadcast. In May 2018, a smaller cut of 17 employees ended production of Discovery's Daily Planet and Space's Innerspace.

  By February 2021, under new president Wade Oosterman, the company eliminated hundreds of rank-and-file jobs, including at least 210 in its Toronto offices. Dedicated newsrooms disappeared for news-talk stations CJAD Montreal and CFRB Toronto, and three TSN Radio outlets became automated. Oosterman's memo cited the pandemic, changing media consumption, and "aggressive" competition from global players. Unifor, the union representing Bell employees, questioned the cuts, noting BCE had taken $122 million in emergency wage subsidy in 2020 while raising its dividend.

  In June 2023, BCE announced it was cutting 1,300 positions across its telecom and media operations, about 3 percent of its workforce. Six percent of Bell Media's roughly 5,645 employees were affected, and the company closed or sold nine AM radio stations, including CFRW, CKMX, and CJBK. BCE blamed industry shifts and what one executive called "relentless regulatory intervention" by the CRTC on wireless and internet pricing.

  On the 8th of February 2024, BCE cut 4,800 positions, 10 percent of them at Bell Media, citing declining revenue and new CRTC fibreoptic access rules. The company cut noon and weekend newscasts across CTV stations and sold 45 of its 103 radio stations to seven different buyers. Bell executive Robert Malcolmson told the Canadian Press that radio was simply "not a viable business anymore."

• 8. Chasing The Streaming Audience

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  In December 2014, Bell Media launched CraveTV, a subscription streaming service available only through existing television providers. President Kevin Crull argued the service would not undercut linear television, since it would not exist without the traditional TV system supporting it. CraveTV became a standalone service, no television subscription required, on the 14th of January 2016.

  On the 6th of January 2016, Bell Media partnered with iHeartMedia to launch a localized iHeartRadio Canada. Two years later, in January 2018, Bell signed licensing deals with Starz Inc. and Lionsgate, rebranding TMN Encore as Starz in 2019.

  On the 10th of June 2024, Rogers Sports & Media announced it had acquired rights to Warner Bros. Discovery's factual and lifestyle brands starting in January 2025. The deal threatened to end Bell Media and CTV's long relationship with Discovery, prompting Bell to file a court injunction over an alleged two-year non-compete clause. Rogers called the lawsuit without merit.

  On the 8th of October 2024, Bell settled with WBD and Rogers, renewing its licensing deal for HBO and Warner Bros. content on Crave. The companies also agreed to co-produce new programming and distribute Bell Media's own productions internationally. Discovery-branded networks were rebranded that January, with Animal Planet, Discovery Science, and Discovery Velocity becoming CTV Wild, Nature, and Speed Channel.

  Sean Cohan became Bell Media's president in early 2024, after Wade Oosterman's retirement was announced on the 3rd of October 2023. Cohan had previously worked as an executive at American media companies A&E Networks and Nielsen.

  In March 2025, Bell Media acquired a majority stake in Abacus Media Rights, the international distribution arm of Montreal studio Sphere Media. Cohan described an internal initiative called Northern Lights, aimed at more international production partnerships. In an interview with Deadline Hollywood, he said the company had a responsibility to raise the profile of Canadian content and Canadian creative talent worldwide.

  In April 2024, Bell Media had already launched a suite of free ad-supported streaming channels co-branded with CTV, TSN, and Noovo. In August 2025, the company hired former Disney Streaming executive Jerrell Jimerson to lead a new digital products and experiences role. Two months later, in October 2025, Bell Media announced a partnership with Fox-owned streaming service Tubi to co-develop programming and handle Canadian advertising sales, adding its own free channels to Tubi's live TV catalogue.