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 24 English stations, mostly branded Moose FM. Some other stations such as CFBK-FM Huntsville use other brandings. They are 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 is in Toronto, Ontario, although most of its operations are based in Haliburton. Toronto-based Slaight Communications 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 as a partial owner, and acquiring an existing station in Haldimand.
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. 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, as well as CJCS and CHGK-FM in Stratford; these transactions were approved by the CRTC on February 21, 2011.
In late 2010, the company applied to buy two Niagara Falls radio stations, CKEY-FM and CFLZ-FM. Haliburton received approval on June 8, 2011.
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. The transaction was approved by the CRTC on October 19, 2012.
Read more about this topic: Haliburton Broadcasting Group
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