Slaight Communications is a Canadian

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

broadcasting company. The company was formed as Slaight Broadcasting in 1971, when owner J. Allan Slaight acquired

CFGM CFIQ (640 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial Radio broadcasting, radio station licensed to Richmond Hill, Ontario, Richmond Hill, Ontario, and serving Greater Toronto, Southern Ontario and Western New York with a talk radio, talk format known a ...

in Richmond Hill. Slaight later also acquired CFOX in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and

CHOK CHOK (1070 kHz, "CHOK 103.9 FM & 1070 AM") is a Canadian commercial radio station, licensed to Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, and owned by Blackburn Radio. The station broadcasts a country music format with local all-news radio, talk radio and s ...

Sarnia Sarnia is a city in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It had a Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population of 72,047, and is the largest city on Lake Huron. Sarnia is located on the eastern bank of the junction between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes, ...

, and launched

CILQ CILQ-FM (107.1 MHz) is a commercial radio station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, known as ''Q107''. The station broadcasts a mainstream rock format and is owned by Corus Entertainment. CILQ's studios are in the Corus Quay building on Dockside Dri ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. The company later sold off all of its original assets, and continued to operate its radio holdings through the Standard Broadcasting division after Slaight bought out that company in 1985. As Standard, it remained the largest privately owned multimedia company in Canada until it sold its radio and TV broadcasting assets to

Astral Media Astral Media Inc. was a Canadian media conglomerate. It was Canada's largest radio broadcaster, with 84 radio stations in eight provinces. Astral was also a major player in premium and specialty television in Canada, with 23 specialty channel ...

in 2007. Today, all of Standard Radio stations are either owned by

Bell Media Bell Media Inc. (Canadian French, French: ) is a Canadian media conglomerate that is the mass media subsidiary of BCE Inc. (also known as Bell Canada Enterprises, the owner of telecommunications company Bell Canada). Its operations include nati ...

Stingray Radio Stingray Radio Inc. is a Canadian radio broadcasting conglomerate owned by Stingray Group. It owns and operates 101 radio stations in Canada, making it the largest radio conglomerate in Canada. It also once owned two now-defunct television statio ...

. The company continues to operate holdings in non-traditional broadcast platforms such as

satellite radio Satellite radio is defined by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)'s ITU Radio Regulations (RR) as a '' broadcasting-satellite service''. The satellite's signals are broadcast nationwide, across a much wider geographical area than te ...

and

Internet radio Internet radio, also known as online radio, web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio and IP radio, is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not ...

. Slaight also continues to hold minority investments in three other small radio station groups.

Standard Broadcasting

Standard Broadcasting was founded as Standard Radio Manufacturing in 1925 by Edward S. Rogers, Sr., but soon became known as

Rogers Vacuum Tube Company Rogers Vacuum Tube Company (formally named Radio Manufacturing Corporation Limited) was founded as the Standard Radio Manufacturing Corporation in 1925 by Edward Rogers (1900–1939) to sell Rogers "Batteryless" radios using vacuum tube technology. ...

and later became the Rogers Majestic Corporation Limited.Canadian Communications Foundation – Fondation Des Communications Canadiennes
Rogers launched what would become

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

CFRB CFRB (1010 AM) is a commercial radio station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is owned by Bell Media and carries a News/Talk radio format. Its studios and offices are in the Entertainment District at 250 Richmond Street West. One of the oldes ...

in 1927 in order to demonstrate a batteryless

alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current that periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time, in contrast to direct current (DC), which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in w ...

radio receiver In radio communications, a radio receiver, also known as a receiver, a wireless, or simply a radio, is an electronic device that receives radio waves and converts the information carried by them to a usable form. It is used with an antenna. ...

he had invented. In 1929 Standard Radio Manufacturing Corporation was renamed as Rogers Majestic Corporation Limited The broadcasting division of the company was renamed Standard Radio Limited in 1941 when the Rogers family sold off the assets of Rogers Majestic two years after the death of Edward Rogers. The Rogers family would later re-enter the broadcasting business in 1960 in a form of Aldred-Rogers Broadcasting, the company founded by Edward's son, Ted Rogers, which later became

Rogers Communications Rogers Communications Inc. is a Canadian communications and media company operating primarily in the fields of wireless communications, cable television, telephony and Internet, with significant additional telecommunications and mass media ass ...

. In 1945, Standard Radio was purchased by

Argus Corporation The Argus Corporation was an investment holding company based in Toronto, Ontario. During the 1960s and 1970s, it was the most powerful and best known conglomerate in Canada, at one time controlling the companies making up 10 percent of all shar ...

and in 1966 Standard Radio Limited was renamed Standard Broadcasting. Argus was acquired by

Conrad Black Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour (born 25 August 1944), is a Canadian-British writer and former politician, Publishing, newspaper publisher, Investor, financier, and Fraudster, convicted fraudster. Black's father was businessma ...

and his brother in 1978. Argus subsequently sold Standard to Slaight in 1985 and merged into Slaight Broadcasting.

Merged operations

As Standard, the company under Slaight operated 82 radio stations in English Canada and two television stations in northern

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

. It also owned a significant minority interest in the radio station operators

Milestone Radio Milestone Radio, Inc. was a radio broadcasting company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They were the first broadcasting company in Canada that was owned and operated by Black Canadians. The company's president was Denham Jolly. Company ...

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 2012.3937844 Canada Inc. in Canada, and

Martz Communications Group Martz Communications Group is an American radio broadcasting company, which operates three radio stations in the St. Lawrence River area of New York and one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company, which also operates under the names Radio Power a ...

in the US. The company also operated divisions in

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

videotape Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually Sound recording and reproduction, sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog signal, analog or Digital signal (signal processing), digital signal. V ...

and

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

distribution, retail marketing and audio and video post-production, and was the primary shareholder in the

provider

Sirius Canada Sirius Canada was a Canadian company, a partnership between Slaight Communications, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Sirius Satellite Radio, which was one of three services licensed by the CRTC on June 16, 2005, to introduce satellite r ...

. In 2006, the company announced an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

via an

income trust An income trust is an investment that may hold equities, debt instruments, royalty interests or real properties. It is especially useful for financial requirements of institutional investors such as pension funds, and for investors such as retired ...

; these plans were later cancelled due to "market conditions". On February 23, 2007,

announced that it had signed a letter of intent and had entered into exclusive negotiations regarding the acquisition of "substantially all of the assets" of Standard. A formal agreement was later announced, with the proposed transaction being approved by the

CRTC The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; ) is a public organization in Canada tasked with the mandate as a regulatory agency tribunal for various electronic communications, covering broadcasting and telecommunic ...

on September 28, 2007. Astral would eventually be taken over by

on July 5, 2013. Astral did not acquire Standard's Internet and satellite radio assets, nor its minority interests in various other radio stations. The transaction was finalized on October 29, 2007, and Standard changed its name to Slaight Communications the following day.

Current assets

After selling its Standard Radio assets to

in October 2007, Slaight Communications remained the owner and operator of

portal

Iceberg Radio An iceberg is a piece of fresh water ice more than long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". Much of an ic ...

, which was subsequently also sold to Astral in a separate transaction. The company is still a partner, along with Canadian Satellite Radio Holdings,

Sirius XM Radio Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting corporation headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. The company was formed by the 2008 merger ...

and the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is the Canadian Public broadcasting, public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a Crown corporation that serves as the national public broadcaster, with its E ...

, in

Sirius XM Canada Sirius XM Canada Holdings Inc. (commonly referred to as Sirius XM Canada; normally stylized SiriusXM) is a Canadian broadcasting company which distributes the services of American satellite radio provider Sirius XM in Canada. The current company ...

. The company also retained its minority shares in the Haliburton,

Milestone A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway, railway line, canal or border, boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks like Mileage sign, mileage signs; or they c ...

and Martz radio groups, although all three groups have since sold off many or all of their assets as well. Standard's minority share in 3937844 Canada was also not transferred to Astral, but was wholly acquired by its majority owner,

Newcap Broadcasting Stingray Radio Inc. is a Canadian radio broadcasting conglomerate owned by Stingray Group. It owns and operates 101 radio stations in Canada, making it the largest radio conglomerate in Canada. It also once owned two now-defunct television statio ...

, in a separate transaction which also took place in 2007. In 2010, the company invested in Mediazoic, a webcasting software project."Mediazoic attracts investment from Slaight Communications"
''TechVibes'', July 22, 2010. Slaight Communications owns a 7.19% stake in Fight Holdings, a minority partner in

Anthem Sports & Entertainment Anthem Sports & Entertainment Inc. (formerly Anthem Media Group) is a Canadian multinational media company based in Toronto, Ontario and founded by Leonard Asper. Anthem is majority-controlled by Asper via his Sygnus Corporation. Fight Holdings ...

References

{{reflist Juno Award winners Companies based in Toronto 1925 establishments in Ontario Privately held companies of Canada