Bell Media

Bell Media Inc. (French: Bell Média inc.) is a Canadian media conglomerate that is the mass media subsidiary of BCE Inc. (also known as Bell Canada Enterprises, the owner of telecommunications company Bell Canada). Its operations include national television broadcasting and production (including the CTV and CTV 2 television networks), radio broadcasting (through iHeartRadio Canada), digital media (including Crave) and Internet properties (including the now-defunct Sympatico portal). Bell Media is the successor-in-interest to Baton Broadcasting (later CTV Inc.), one of Canada's first private-sector television broadcasters. Although the company was founded in 1960 as Telegram Corporation, the current enterprise traces its origins to the establishment of Bell Globemedia Inc. in 2001 by BCE and the Thomson family, combining CTV Inc. (which BCE had acquired in 2000) and the operations of the Thomson family's newspaper, The Globe and Mail. 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 ), 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. The name of this company derived from its initial investors, including the Bassett and Eaton families (Baton), and Aldred-Rogers Broadcasting (owned by broadcaster Joel Aldred and Ted Rogers); Foster Hewitt was also an initial investor, but in a much smaller role. Aldred sold his shares in 1961, followed by Rogers by 1970, thereby relieving their names from the company title. With the Bassett and Eaton families firmly in control, the company went public in the early 1970s. CFTO was one of the charter affiliates of CTV when that network formed in 1961, becoming the network's flagship.