Haliburton Broadcasting Group
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Haliburton Broadcasting Group is a Canadian group of FM radio stations, located primarily in smaller markets in Ontario.
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[edit] History
The company is 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.
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.
The company currently owns 14 English stations, all branded Moose FM with the exception of CIYN, which is branded The Coast FM. They are generally formatted with adult contemporary or hot adult contemporary music; Moose FM Timmins was a country music station before moving to classic rock. The company also operates two French stations, branded as CHYC (pronounced like the French word chic), over four transmitters.
Haliburton's head office is in Toronto, Ontario, although most of its operations are based in Haliburton. Toronto-based Standard Broadcasting owns 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 and acquiring an existing station in Haldimand.
[edit] 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 top 40 station 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.
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 Communications stations in Timmins.
On March 17, 2005, the CRTC published notice of an application Haliburton filed in 2004 to launch an FM country station in North Bay, Ontario [1]. It was approved on August 11, 2005 [2].
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 [3]. This license was also subsequently granted, and the station launched in 2006.
[edit] Haliburton stations
[edit] Moose FM
- Bancroft - CHMS 97.7
- Bracebridge - CFBG 99.5
- Cochrane - CHPB 98.1
- Elliot Lake - CKNR 94.1
- Haldimand - CKJN 92.9
- Haliburton - CFZN 93.5
- Huntsville - CFBK 105.5
- Iroquois Falls - CFIF 101.1
- Kapuskasing - CKAP 100.9
- North Bay - CFXN 106.3
- Parry Sound - CKLP 103.3
- Timmins - CHMT 93.1
[edit] The Coast FM
- Kincardine - CIYN 95.5
