John White Hughes Bassett, (August 25, 1915 – April 27, 1998) was a Canadian media proprietor. Born in

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the c ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, he was the son of John Bassett (1886–1958), publisher of the ''

Montreal Gazette The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of t ...

'', and Marion Avery (née Wright).

Education

Bassett attended Ashbury College, Bishop's College School and graduated from

Bishop's University Bishop's University (french: Université Bishop's) is a small English-language liberal arts university in Lennoxville, a borough of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. The founder of the institution was the Anglican Bishop of Quebec, George Mountain ...

with a BA in 1936.

Politics

After fighting with the Army in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Bassett ran unsuccessfully for the

Progressive Conservative Party of Canada The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PC; french: Parti progressiste-conservateur du Canada) was a centre-right federal political party in Canada that existed from 1942 to 2003. From Canadian Confederation in 1867 until 1942, the ...

, in the 1945 Canadian election in the riding of

Sherbrooke Sherbrooke ( ; ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. It is at the confluence of the Saint-François and Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional cou ...

, losing to Liberal incumbent, Maurice Gingues. He also ran in the 1962 election in the riding of Spadina losing to Liberal candidate Perry Ryan by less than 2,000 votes.

Publishing and broadcasting

He became a

reporter A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

for

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

's ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' newspaper after graduating from university. After World War II, he was hired by the ''

Toronto Telegram ''The Toronto Evening Telegram'' was a conservative, broadsheet afternoon newspaper published in Toronto from 1876 to 1971. It had a reputation for supporting the Conservative Party at the federal and the provincial levels. The paper competed w ...

'' as advertising director. His first experience in newspaper ownership was with the ''

Sherbrooke Daily Record ''The Record'' is the only daily (Monday–Friday) English language newspaper based in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. It serves the Eastern Townships region of that province. It is one of the French-speaking province's last two English-language d ...

'', which he bought from his father. In 1952, Bassett purchased part ownership of the ''Toronto Telegram''. In 1960, he founded Baton Broadcasting to run

's first commercial

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ea ...

, CFTO-TV. A few months later, he won the television rights to the Eastern Conference of the Canadian Football League. He needed a network in order to broadcast the games. The result was the Canadian Television Network, later to become

CTV CTV may refer to: Television * Connected TV, or Smart TV, a TV set with integrated internet North America and South America * CTV Television Network, a Canadian television network owned by Bell Media ** CTV 2, a secondary Canadian televisio ...

, with CFTO as the flagship station. Starting in the 1980s, Bassett began a drive to take over CTV by buying as many stations as possible. He succeeded in 1997, a year before his death.

Sports

From 1957 to 1974, Bassett was the owner of the

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the CFL East Division, East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based i ...

, a team in the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a c ...

. In 1957, he was named to the "Silver Seven," a committee that oversaw hockey operations for the

Toronto Maple Leafs The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Div ...

. In 1961, longtime Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe sold most of his shares in Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. (which owned the Maple Leafs and

Maple Leaf Gardens Maple Leaf Gardens is a historic building located at the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was initially constructed in 1931 as an arena to host ice hockey games, though it has sinc ...

) to a partnership of his son

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in th ...

Toronto Marlboros The Toronto Marlborough Athletic Club, commonly known as the Toronto Marlboros, was founded in 1903. It operated junior ice hockey and senior ice hockey teams in the Ontario Hockey Association and later the Ontario Hockey League. The Marlboros ...

president Harold Ballard and Bassett for $2.3 million. Smythe later claimed that he thought he was selling only to his son, but it is very unlikely that Stafford would have been able to raise the money on his own. Bassett became chairman of the Gardens' board of directors, when Smythe resigned shortly after Toronto won the Stanley Cup in 1962. Bassett's name appears on the Stanley Cup 4 times 1962, 1963, 1964, 1967. In 1969, Ballard and Stafford Smythe were charged with tax evasion and accused of using Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. to pay for their personal expenses. Bassett persuaded the board to fire Smythe as president and Ballard as executive vice president. The board elected Bassett as the new president. However, Bassett did not force Smythe and Ballard to sell their shares, and they both remained on the board. That was a serious strategic blunder on Bassett's part; Smythe was still the largest shareholder, and he and Ballard controlled almost half the shares between them. A year later, Ballard and Smythe staged a proxy war to win back control. Faced with an untenable situation, Bassett resigned and sold his shares to Smythe and Ballard. Bassett's son,

John F. Bassett John F. Bassett (February 5, 1939 – May 15, 1986) was a Canadian tennis player, businessman, and film producer. Athletic career Bassett won the Canadian Open Junior Doubles Championship in 1955 when he was 15 years old. He reached the second ...

, would follow in his father's path of becoming a professional sports owner; the younger Bassett was a part owner of the

World Hockey Association The World Hockey Association (french: Association mondiale de hockey) was a professional ice hockey major league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major league to compete with the National Hockey League (NHL) ...

's Ottawa Nationals,

Toronto Toros The Toronto Toros were an ice hockey team based in Toronto that played in the World Hockey Association from 1973 to 1976. History The franchise was awarded to Doug Michel in 1971 for $25,000 to play in the WHA's inaugural 1972–73 season. H ...

and Birmingham Bulls; the

World Football League The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest the ...

's Memphis Southmen and the

United States Football League The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...

's Tampa Bay Bandits.

Government

In 1989, he was appointed for a three-year term as chairman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, an independent body that reports to the

Parliament of Canada The Parliament of Canada (french: Parlement du Canada) is the federal legislature of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and is composed of three parts: the King, the Senate, and the House of Commons. By constitutional convention, ...

on the operations of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Due to the requirements under the

Official Secrets Act An Official Secrets Act (OSA) is legislation that provides for the protection of state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security but in unrevised form (based on the UK Official Secrets Act 1911) can include all infor ...

, Bassett was sworn into the

Queen's Privy Council for Canada The 's Privy Council for Canada (french: Conseil privé du Roi pour le Canada),) during the reign of a queen. sometimes called Majesty's Privy Council for Canada or simply the Privy Council (PC), is the full group of personal consultants to the ...

Family

Bassett married fellow

graduate Eleanor Moira Bradley of

on April 26, 1938 in the University's St. Mark's Chapel. They had three children:

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

Doug Doug is a male personal name (or, depending on which definition of "personal name" one uses, part of a personal name). It is sometimes a given name (or "first name"), but more often it is hypocorism (affectionate variation of a personal name) which ...

, and David. After their divorce, Bassett married Isabel Bassett on July 17, 1967."Isabel Glenthorne Macdonald"
''bassettbranches.org'' June 24, 2018 They had three children (Avery, Sarah, and Matthew) and remained together until his death. In the 1970s, his son

was the owner of the

, a hockey team in the

. Former tennis star Carling Bassett-Seguso is Bassett's granddaughter.

Honours

* 1985 - Made an Officer of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the cen ...

. * 1988 - Appointed to the

Order of Ontario The Order of Ontario () is the most prestigious official honour in the Canadian province of Ontario. Instituted in 1986 by Lieutenant Governor Lincoln Alexander, on the advice of the Cabinet under Premier David Peterson, the civilian order is ad ...

. * 1989 - Appointed to the

. * 1992 - Promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada. * 2000 - Inducted into the

Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame The Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame, started in 1982, recognizes Canadians in broadcasting or entertainment related industries who have "achieved outstanding success in helping raise industry standards from a material or humanitarian standpoint." T ...

. * 2003 - Inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bassett, John 1915 births 1998 deaths 20th-century Canadian businesspeople Anglophone Quebec people Bishop's University alumni Bishop's College School alumni Burials at Grove Street Cemetery Businesspeople from Ottawa Canadian Anglicans Canadian mass media owners Canadian military personnel of World War II Canadian newspaper publishers (people) Canadian people of English descent Candidates in the 1945 Canadian federal election Candidates in the 1962 Canadian federal election Companions of the Order of Canada Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Members of the Order of Ontario Members of the King's Privy Council for Canada National Hockey League executives National Hockey League owners Progressive Conservative Party of Canada candidates for the Canadian House of Commons Politicians from Ottawa Sportspeople from Ottawa Stanley Cup champions Toronto Argonauts owners Toronto Maple Leafs executives Toronto Toros