DARTMOUTH, N.S.- Newcap Inc. announced today it will pay Haliburton Broadcasting $18.95 million for 12 FM stations in Central and Northern Ontario.
The press release doesn’t specify the stations exactly, but Haliburton owns 12 English-language radio licenses across Ontario’s cottage country and into northeastern Ontario which are branded Moose FM.
The stations are all generally A/C, classic rock or light rock stations and several are the only local FM signal in the market. The Moose stations’ frequencies and towns are: 106.3 North Bay; 93.1 Timmins; 97.7 Bancroft; 99.5 Bracebridge; 93.5 Haliburton; 105.5 Huntsville; 101.3 Parry Sound; 98.1 Cochrane; 94.1 Elliot Lake; 100.9 Kapuskasing; 101.1 Iroquois Falls; 94.5 Hearst.
“This is a good fit for us,” Newcap CEO Rob Steele told Cartt.ca in an interview on Monday. “It fits our acquisition criteria. It’s a network of stations in small and mid-sized markets – similar to what we’ve done in Newfoundland and Alberta. It fits that model.”
Newcap already has a small presence in Northern Ontario with Big Daddy 103.9 (classic hits) in Sudbury, and a request to the Commission for a station swap with Rogers for another one in that market. This new group will, of course, add scale to that division. The company also has Ontario stations farther afield in Ottawa and Thunder Bay.
“If we can get the swap and the sale done, it gives us some bones to build on (in northeastern Ontario),” added Steele.
“We’ll try to beef up there over time and probably try to pick up some other stations in and around there and build onto that network. There are some other opportunities – some smaller independents around there.”
Other than three cities (Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa), Newcap’s 76 radio licenses are in small-to-medium markets, which is the company’s primary focus. “We’ve waded into the bigger markets when we can, but our heritage is in smaller markets,” added Steele.
As for the many critics who continue to decry radio’s aging status in a new media world, Steele says he sees a bright future for the medium. Despite the fact that those in small markets can now bring the world to them on the web and with satellite radio, FM continues to grow.
“I’m more bullish on it now than I was even a few years ago,” said Steele. “When XM and Sirius satellite was coming on, all the analysts were asking us what impact it was going to have and nobody really knew. But that’s really a different product – and they’re struggling.
“FM just seems to keep on ticking. It just comes up through the middle somehow. The revenues are growing for FM radio, and we’ve stuck to our knitting.”
Plus, the fact that so many Newcap stations are the lone, or one of a very few local media outlets, in the communities they operate, also serves the company well.
“They’re the voice of the community,” said Steele. “What’s going to replace that?”
