The empire built by BCE Enterprises grew on the foundation of Bell Canada, which held the local and long-distance telephone monopoly in much of the country before telecommunications were deregulated. BCE was transformed into a diversified entity, and has a robust investment arm, but remains focused on communications. Telephone utilities are prominent among its core assets.

BCE controls just over 70 percent of the shares in Bell Globemedia, with the remaining stock held by one-time newspaper giant Thomson Corporation and the personal investment company of Ken Thomson (who continues to chair the board of the Globe and Mail). Convergence opportunities drove the deal, but Thomson also wanted to preserve the Globe and Mail after divesting other newspapers in a global chain founded by his father. He invested $385 million (Canadian) in the joint venture, a significant amount that is nonetheless dwarfed by BCE’s stake.

In a move that came to have profound consequences for the entire broadcasting system, BCE acquired CTV for $2.3 billion early in the year of 2000. Thanks to a series of acquisitions and structural changes, CTV no longer resembled the loose network of its founding era of the 1960s. Eighteen of the network’s 28 stations had been brought under a single corporate umbrella, along with six network-owned affiliates of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. At the time of the merger CTV also owned a number of cable channels and had purchased a majority of specialty channel player Netstar.

The takeover of CTV was but one in a string of such transactions during what was to become Canada’s year of media convergence. A frenzy of mergers and acquisitions resulted in the consolidation of several media conglomerates. Bell Globemedia’s fiercest challenger for private sector paramountcy, CanWest Global, emerged at roughly the same point in time and with a similarly diverse communications portfolio. Lesser companies followed suit and entered into deals that resulted in a major reshaping of the broadcast industry in 2000.

The flurry of transactions alarmed critics. It was feared that Bell Globemedia and other exponents of convergence would seek to maximize profits at the expense of content and reduce workforces through the sort of rationalization that often follows on the heels of integrations. CTV had attracted criticism over the years for relying too heavily on imported American fare in prime time, and investing too meanly in quality domestic programming. The network’s nightly national newscast had long dominated ratings, and its supper-hour news programming has tended to eclipse the offerings of competitors in local markets. Did the merger herald an erosion of news and other fare on the broadcast side?

In December 2000 the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) formally approved the takeover of CTV by the budding Bell Globemedia partnership. The CRTC did attach a number of conditions to its decision that it claimed would result in a significant infusion of funds for Canadian programming. The CRTC ruling required that Bell Globemedia invest some $230 million (roughly 10 percent of the transaction) in its broadcast holdings. Approximately 60 percent of the total was to be funneled into programming, the vast majority commissioned from domestic independent production companies. Bell Globemedia was also obliged to auction off Sportsnet, one of Canada’s two main specialty sports channels available on cable, after CTV had purchased arch-rival The Sports Network.

There was another important, albeit indirect, outcome to the merger. BCE owned and operated Bell ExpressVu, one of two digital, direct-to-home satellite services in Canada. With the addition of CTV, the new Bell Globemedia would be in the position of both providing content and distributing it. Conventional analog cable operators argued that they, too, should be allowed to own channels as well. Advocacy groups such as the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting opposed this on the grounds that it would pave the way for greater concentration of ownership. Fearing that they would be disadvantaged when it came to favorable channel placement and marketing, specialty channel licensees not in the cable business also spoke out against this prospect.

In June 2001 the CRTC agreed with the cable companies. In its ruling the CRTC did say that all channels should receive fair and equitable treatment and identified a number of concrete steps that should be taken to embody this principle. Critics were not mollified. To them, further concentration seemed inevitable and the CRTC had effectively blessed the entanglements that increasingly characterize broadcast media ownership in Canada.

Another controversial aspect of the creation of Bell Globemedia involved the propriety of uniting a prestigious newspaper with a major television network. Historically, cross-ownership of media enterprises has been frowned upon by media regulators in Canada. Sensitivities about the Globe and Mail have been especially acute given the newspaper’s national reach and its influence on policymakers and other news media. Until the convergence boom, newspaper chains and broadcasting enterprises partnerships were generally kept apart or participated in informal ownership and content-sharing relationships. In August 2001 the CRTC agreed to extend CTV’s license for a further seven years. In doing so it cited promising “journalistic synergies” between the newsrooms of CTV and the Globe and Mail, while insisting that editorial control was divided.

As of January 2002, the Bell Globemedia stable included its CTV network properties and CBC affiliates, together with interests in 13 specialty and pay channels and five digital specialty channels. Although primarily serving English-speaking audiences, Bell Globemedia has branched out to hold a stake in six French-language specialty and digital services. On a variety of indices, this roster makes Bell Globemedia the largest private-sector player in Canadian broadcasting.