Haliburton Broadcasting Group

The Haliburton Broadcasting Group was a Canadian group of FM radio stations, located primarily in smaller markets in Ontario. The company was purchased by Vista Broadcast Group in 2012.[1]

Haliburton Broadcasting Group
private
Industryradio broadcasting
Fateacquired by Vista Broadcast Group
Defunct2012
HeadquartersToronto, Ontario, Canada
Key people
Christopher Grossman, president
OwnerBeaumaris Group (70.1%)
Slaight Communications (29.9%)
WebsiteHaliburton Broadcasting Group

History

The company was named for the Haliburton region in Central Ontario, where majority owner and president Christopher Grossman, a longtime radio sales manager, trainer and executive, was also a hotelier before purchasing his first radio station, CFBG in Bracebridge, in 1997.[2]

HBG expanded greatly into Northern Ontario in 1999 by acquiring several stations from the Pelmorex Radio Network. In 2004, they also acquired CKNR in Elliot Lake, a station which had also once been part of Pelmorex but was sold to North Channel Broadcasting in 1996.[3][4]

At its peak the company owned 24 English stations, mostly branded Moose FM. Some other stations such as CFBK-FM Huntsville use other brandings. They were generally formatted with adult contemporary or hot adult contemporary music; Moose FM Timmins was a country music station before moving to adult hits. The company also formerly operated two French stations, branded as CHYC (pronounced like the French word chic), over a number of transmitters, but these were sold to Le5 Communications in 2008.

Haliburton's head office was in Toronto, Ontario, although most of its operations were based in Haliburton. Toronto-based Slaight Communications owned a significant minority interest in the group, which was not included in that company's 2007 sale of most of its broadcasting assets to Astral Media.

In 2006 and 2007, the company also expanded into Southwestern Ontario for the first time, launching a new station in Kincardine as a partial owner, and acquiring an existing station in Haldimand.[5]

On May 20, 2010, Haliburton applied to the CRTC to acquire CJJM-FM in Espanola, Ontario, which was owned by Joco Communications and received approval on August 12, 2010.[6] Formerly branded as Joco Radio, the station was rebranded as Moose FM in September 2010. The company also announced subsequent deals to acquire CJJM's former sister station CFSF-FM in Sturgeon Falls,[7] as well as CJCS and CHGK-FM in Stratford; these transactions were approved by the CRTC on February 21, 2011.[8][9][10]

In late 2010, the company applied to buy two Niagara Falls radio stations, CKEY-FM and CFLZ-FM.[11][12][13] Haliburton received approval on June 8, 2011.[14]

On April 23, 2012 Vista Broadcast Group, which owns 38 radio stations in western Canada, announced a deal to acquire Haliburton Broadcasting, in cooperation with Westerkirk Capital, for $32.34 million.[15][16] The transaction was approved by the CRTC on October 19, 2012.[1]

Strategy and competition

Haliburton's strategy has been based on the conversion of former AM radio stations to FM, adoption of generally more contemporary-oriented music formats, modest staffing levels, and economies of scale through shared voice tracking, production and advertising sales across the regional group.

CHNO in Sudbury was an AM oldies station when Haliburton acquired it from Pelmorex; a stipulation in the CRTC's approval of the transaction allowed it to move to FM. In 2000, it relaunched at 103.9 as a contemporary hit radio station branded as Z103. After a short time, it was sold in 2001 to the larger Newcap Broadcasting for significantly more than it had been acquired for. The CRTC, wary of potential "license trafficking," accepted the sale on the grounds that Haliburton had been losing money with CHNO, and would reinvest the proceeds into its contemporaneous purchase of CKLP in Parry Sound.[17][18]

CHMT in Timmins launched in 2001 as an adult contemporary station as Mix 93, but soon faltered under competition from CKGB, formerly an AM country station which adopted the EZ Rock adult contemporary brand and moved to FM shortly after CHMT launched. CHMT flipped to country about a year later, and eventually relented as had CHNO, abandoning its own sales staff and sharing sales with the two Rogers Media stations in Timmins.[19]

On March 17, 2005, the CRTC published notice of an application Haliburton filed in 2004 to launch an FM country station in North Bay,[20] which was approved on August 11, 2005.[21] However, the North Bay station launched as an adult hits format in the summer of 2006, instead of the country music format the station originally proposed.

On April 7, 2005, they published notice of an application also filed in 2004 to launch an FM "adult contemporary rock" station in Haliburton itself.[22] This license was also subsequently granted, and the station launched in 2006.[23]

On August 4, 2010, Haliburton applied to operate a new FM radio station in Barry's Bay to operate at 106.5 MHz with an adult contemporary format. Haliburton received CRTC approval on January 12, 2011.[24]

On December 13, 2010, Haliburton applied to operate a new FM radio station in Kemptville, Ontario. The new station will operate on 97.5 MHz with an adult contemporary format. Haliburton received CRTC approval on April 21, 2011.[25]

On May 19, 2011, Haliburton applied to operate a new FM radio station in Prescott, Ontario. The new station would operate at 107.9 MHz with a hot adult contemporary music format. Haliburton received CRTC approval on November 10, 2011.[26]

On November 9, 2011, Haliburton submitted applications to the CRTC to acquire CJFB-FM in Bolton, Ontario and CFGM-FM in Caledon, Ontario.[27] This was approved on March 14, 2012.[28]

Sale of holdings

In May 2008, Haliburton announced a deal to sell the CHYC stations to Le5 Communications, a firm owned by Sudbury lawyer Paul Lefebvre, for a purchase price of $425,000.[29] The deal was approved by the CRTC on October 31, 2008.[30]

On July 28, 2008, HBG announced that it had sold 12 stations to Newcap Broadcasting, subject to CRTC approval, for a price of $18.95 million.[31] The Kincardine and Haldimand stations were not part of the deal, and their status was not disclosed at the time of the Newcap announcement. Newcap's formal application to acquire the stations was published for public hearings by the CRTC on November 13, 2008,[32] but was subsequently withdrawn in January 2009.[33] Newcap CEO Rob Steele indicated that in light of the credit market crisis, the company did not feel that it was the right time to increase its debt load.[34]

In February 2009, Haliburton was part of a tentative deal to sell CIYN in Kincardine to My Broadcasting Corporation.[35]

On October 19, 2012, the CRTC approved Vista Broadcast Group's application for authority to acquire Haliburton's AM and FM radio stations located in Ontario.[1]

Stations

At the time of Haliburton's acquisition by Vista in 2012, the company owned the following stations:

Former stations

The following stations were owned by Haliburton in the past, but were sold to other owners prior to the company's final acquisition:

gollark: Or random third parties with access to your data? That could be bad too?
gollark: Oh, and THEY could never do evil things!
gollark: Consider the possibilities of repressive governments with access to this sort of information. Like China, actually.
gollark: You just don't want to use them.
gollark: There are perfectly good free things WITHOUT THE SPYING.

References
  1. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2012-577. Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, October 19, 2012.
  2. Decision CRTC 97-671, Acquisition of assets, CRTC, December 10, 1997
  3. Decision CRTC 96-396
  4. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2004-114
  5. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2008-68
  6. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2010-565
  7. Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2010-935
  8. "Haliburton Broadcasting Group Inc. buys three Ontario radio stations" Archived 2010-09-22 at the Wayback Machine. Canadian Press, September 17, 2010.
  9. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2011-110
  10. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2011-111
  11. New radio station owner thrilled with Niagara market Archived 2011-07-06 at the Wayback Machine Niagara Falls Review, 2010
  12. Two Niagara Falls radio stations sold Archived 2010-12-04 at the Wayback Machine, Niagara Falls Review, 2010
  13. Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2011-188-3
  14. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2011-364
  15. "Westerkirk Capital Acquires Vista and Haliburton Broadcast Groups" Archived 2013-09-23 at the Wayback Machine. Broadcaster, April 26, 2012.
  16. "Cartt.ca IN-DEPTH: Margot Micallef, Vista Radio CEO. From zero to 60 (stations) in nine years"
  17. Decision CRTC 99-404 Archived 2011-06-07 at the Wayback Machine
  18. Decision CRTC 2001-691
  19. Decision CRTC 2001-48
  20. Broadcasting Notice of Public Hearing CRTC 2005-3
  21. CRTC Decision 2005-393
  22. Broadcasting Notice of Public Hearing CRTC 2005-4
  23. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2005-488
  24. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2011-20
  25. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2011-270
  26. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2011-698
  27. Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2011-694
  28. Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2012-148 CJFB-FM Bolton and CFGM-FM Caledon – Acquisition of assets, CRTC, March 14, 2012
  29. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-02-14. Retrieved 2008-08-08.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  30. CRTC Decision 2008-296
  32. Broadcasting Notice of Public Hearing CRTC 2008-14
  33. Broadcasting Notice of Public Hearing CRTC 2008-14-7
  34. "Credit markets squelch $19M Newfoundland Capital radio purchase in Ontario", Canadian Press, January 19, 2009.
  35. Scott Fybush, "Analog Sunset? Not in Scranton!", NorthEast Radio Watch, February 23, 2009.
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