Editing Baton Broadcast System (section)

===Acquisition of CTV===
In 1997, Baton bought controlling interest in CTV, and became the sole corporate owner of the network later that year after the remaining station owners sold their shares.  Baton continued to consider the long-standing CTV brand much preferable to its lesser-known BBS moniker, and had not bothered to introduce the latter brand to its new acquisitions.

Almost immediately after its purchase of CTV was complete, Baton introduced new station logos on all of its CTV-affiliated stations that incorporated the network brand, and began using the CTV logo in all programming and promotions where the BBS logo was previously used, even though these programs remained separate from the CTV network service proper.  The BBS name was completely dropped no later than the end of January 1998, and Baton itself changed its corporate name to CTV Inc. later that year.<ref name="gittins" />

Nevertheless, BBS lived on in a very limited sense until 2001, since CTV maintained a separate stream of programming not part of the CTV network service &ndash; though as noted above, from this point on such shows were branded as CTV programs on the network's O&Os. This structure was necessary because the "old" CTV's affiliation agreements, which generally limited network service to 40 hours a week, remained in force. For instance, [[CHAN-DT|CHAN-TV]] (then known as BCTV) was [[Vancouver]]'s CTV affiliate but carried no more than 40 hours of CTV programming (for instance, in its final seasons as a CTV affiliate, it did not broadcast ''[[Canada AM]]'' at all, airing local news instead, although sister station [[CHEK-DT|CHEK-TV]] did air ''CanAM'') while CTV-owned independent station [[CIVT-DT|CIVT-TV]] carried the remainder. As its establishment came shortly before Baton adopted the CTV name for its stations, CIVT did not use the BBS name, instead branding as Vancouver Television (VTV).

Other affiliates such as [[CKY-DT|CKY]] in [[Winnipeg]], [[CJON-DT|NTV]] in [[St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador]], and to a lesser extent [[CFCF-DT|CFCF]] in [[Montreal]], usually acquired additional programming, as they had from BBS. However, these programs were not added to the base 40-hour network schedule (which was part of a traditional network arrangement whereby the network retained most of the ad inventory and affiliates were compensated with airtime payments) &ndash; instead, stations had to pay the network for these additional programs, although they would sell all ads locally (which made the practice more akin to all-cash [[broadcast syndication|syndication]] rather than the more contemporary U.S. practice of [[reverse compensation]]). Series would sometimes switch back and forth between network and non-network status, and in limited cases alternate programming was supplied to affiliates in the event that specific episodes of a non-network program (e.g., ''[[Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (US game show)|Who Wants to Be a Millionaire]]'') were scheduled for a timeslot that had been previously allocated as network time.

On September 1, 2001, CIVT became the Vancouver CTV [[owned-and-operated station]], displacing BCTV and CHEK; around the same time, CTV acquired CKY and CFCF, giving the network's O&O stations group coverage of virtually all major Canadian markets. As a result, CTV elected not to renew its national network licence with the CRTC, and the largely artificial distinction between network and non-network programming was eliminated at this point. CTV would later re-apply for a separate regional licence used specifically to provide programming to affiliates owned by third parties.<ref>[http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2001/DB2001-509.htm Decision 2001-509]</ref> In this sense, CTV as it presently operates could be seen as an enlarged BBS by another name, rather than the direct successor to the "original" CTV; however, for most viewers, this is a technicality of little practical significance.

Baton's independents and newly disaffiliated [[CHRO-TV|CHRO]] were sold to [[CHUM Limited]], becoming [[NewNet]] stations; however CTVglobemedia (now [[Bell Media]]), Baton's successor as a corporate entity, reacquired them as part of its purchase of CHUM Limited in 2007. These stations are now operated by Bell Media under the [[CTV 2]] banner.

Baton's CBC affiliates were later sold to the public broadcaster, and became repeaters of other CBC owned-and-operated stations. CTVgm would later acquire another CBC affiliate, [[CKX-TV]] in [[Brandon, Manitoba|Brandon]], Manitoba, as part of the CHUM purchase, which closed down in late 2009 after a variety of efforts to sell the station failed. Bell Media then acquired two additional two CBC affiliates in interior British Columbia ([[CJDC-TV]] [[Dawson Creek]] and [[CFTK-TV]] [[Terrace, British Columbia|Terrace]]) as part of its 2013 purchase of [[Astral Media]], eventually converting both to CTV 2 stations in 2016.