MONTREAL – A decade ago, Evanov Radio Group had three radio stations in the Greater Toronto Area. Now, it has 17 in four provinces, and is about to expand to 18.
On Tuesday, Evanov announced the latest addition to its radio family would be multilingual ethnic station CFMB 1280 AM in Montreal, Canada’s oldest multilingual radio station. The sale, for $1.125 million through a purchase of all the company’s shares, requires CRTC approval, for which an application was filed on Friday.
The acquisition fits with Evanov’s business plan of developing synergies by sharing resources, explained vice-president and radio group manager Carmela Laurignano. Evanov has two radio stations in the Montreal area set to launch within weeks, and owns ethnic stations in Toronto and Winnipeg.
“We really have found from experience that when you operate more than one undertaking it makes more business sense,” Laurignano said. “With synergy between the stations, we can deliver better service and a better bottom line.”
Evanov’s mini empire started in 1984 with the purchase of CKMW, now CIAO 530 AM in Brampton, Ont., then continued with Z103.5 in Orangeville in 1995 and Jewel 88.5 in Newmarket in 2001. (All three stations market to Toronto though they’re licensed to its suburbs.)
However, it’s over the past decade that Evanov’s growth has taken off, acquiring stations in Brantford, Ont., and Winnipeg, and starting new stations in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Hawkesbury, Ont., Clarence/Rockland, Ont., Meaford, Ont., Hudson, Que., and Montreal, for a total of 14 additions to the family. That doesn’t include a dozen applications to the CRTC for new station licenses that were denied over that time: new FM stations in Kitchener-Waterloo, Shelburne, Collingwood, Owen Sound, Peterborough, Gravenhurst, London and Muskoka Lakes, Ont., plus Kamloops, B.C., Calgary, and English and French stations in Quebec City. As well, the company is waiting for a decision on an application for a station for Brechin/Ramara, Ont. Most of the applications are to expand Evanov’s Jewel brand of easy-listening music stations, which already number eight, including one about to launch in Hudson.
With 17 stations, Evanov and its subsidiaries are the eighth-largest commercial radio broadcaster in Canada by number of licensed stations – and they’re still looking to expand.
Laurignano wouldn’t comment on any future new applications or acquisitions, but she said they are looking to eventually try again for a licence in Quebec City, after the first was denied in 2010 in a split decision.
Evanov and CFMB first discussed a possible acquisition a few years ago, the parties say, but CFMB said no. The station was founded in 1962 by Casimir Stanczykowski, and though he died in 1981, it is still controlled by his widow Anne-Marie and son Stefan, along with long-time minority partner Andrew Mielewczyk.
(Casimir Stanczykowski also launched a multilingual station in Winnipeg in 1974. That station, CKJS 810, was sold to Newcap Radio, who later sold it to Evanov in 2011.)
Anne-Marie Stanczykowski and Mielewczyk are now looking to retire, Stefan Stanczykowski said, and he himself wants to go back to practising law, though he described the decision to sell as bittersweet. Evanov, he said, was the best choice to “carry on the legacy of CFMB” and keep its 50 or so employees.
“We worked very hard to ensure that people here would still have their jobs after the change in ownership,” he said.
Laurignano said there would be changes once Evanov takes over, such as moving the station’s offices and studios to co-locate with Radio Fierté, a French-language LGBT station based on the Proud FM format in Toronto. But for now it’s status quo. And while there can be some synergies on the programming side, particularly for languages where CFMB has had trouble finding talent, the company wants to keep the programming local as much as possible.
“Hopefully we’ll make some improvements, some investment in it,” she said. “There’s no chance that anyone’s going to be displaced.”
