Sportsnet

Sportsnet is a Toronto-based company, owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture between Baton Broadcasting, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. Bell Globemedia, the company that acquired CTV Inc.

(formerly Baton) in 2000, was required to divest the channel following its 2001 acquisition of competing network TSN. Rogers then became the sole owner of Sportsnet in 2004 after it bought the remaining minority stake that was held by Fox.

The Sportsnet license comprises four 24-hour programming services; Sportsnet was originally licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) as a category A service, operating as a group of regional sports networks offering programming tailored to each feed's region (in contrast to TSN, which was licensed at the time to operate as a national sports service, and could only offer limited regional opt-outs).

Since 2011, the service has operated under deregulated category C licensing, which allows Sportsnet to operate multiple feeds with no restrictions on alternate programming. In each region, only the local Sportsnet channel is available on analogue cable, but all four channels are available nationally via digital cable (subject to blackouts for some out-of-market teams).