Q Country, Star FM sold to Pattison Media

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This article was published 26/08/2022 (1274 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two Brandon radio stations have been sold by Westman Communications Group to Pattison Media for an undisclosed amount.

Star FM and Q Country FM will both add to the Kamloops, B.C.-based company’s roster of 48 radio stations, WCG announced in a media release issued Friday afternoon.

The deal must be approved by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. WCG stated in the media release that an application has been submitted and is expected to be approved by the end of this year or early next year.

“When Pattison approached WCG about acquiring Q Country FM and Star FM, we were pleased by their strong history of providing local radio, supporting their communities, and maintaining a high level of local employment,” WCG interim president and chief executive officer Bud Keys stated in the release.

“These are all important things to WCG, and Pattison’s values echo that. We feel confident that these stations will be in excellent hands.”

In an interview with the Sun on Friday, Keys said talks between Pattison and WCG began around February.

According to him, it’s not the first time the company had been approached about selling its radio stations, but this offer was appealing due to Pattison Media having similar corporate values. With the sale, WCG can focus on its core services.

“We’re a broadband internet company predominantly now,” Keys said. “We do a number of other things. We still have a fairly large cable TV base. We sell telephone lines. We also have a number of business services, but obviously that’s our No. 1 product now.”

In recent years, WCG has expanded its reach from 34 communities to 57. By spring, Keys said, that number will likely be around 64. With those expansions of internet service, he said the radio elements grew further away from the core business.

There will not be any changes or reductions to WCG’s remaining employees as a result of the sale, he said.

If anything, Pattison Media will be looking to expand its staff once the sale is approved, according to company president Rod Schween.

The company has strong ties to Western Canada, with billionaire owner Jim Pattison originally from Saskatchewan and its offices located in British Columbia.

“We’ve had a really strong mandate to grow our operations in Western Canada over the last number of years,” Schween said. “We bought into Winnipeg in 2014, and we were keen to have other properties in Manitoba. With this being the second-biggest city [in Manitoba], it’s been on our radar for quite a while.”

Some Pattison Media employees used to work for WCG and spoke highly of the stations’ quality, he added.

Like Keys expressed, Schween said WCG shares many of Pattison Media’s corporate values, which was an important part of pursuing the deal. He noted Pattison isn’t a “cookie-cutter operation.”

“We definitely have brands we share through the company, but we also have brands unique to their markets. We haven’t gotten into those kinds of decisions yet because we don’t lay hands on anything until we get approval from the CRTC, but these have been well-run operations.”

The goal is to change as little as possible, he said, while maintaining an emphasis on local content and working with local employees.

Keys and Schween both declined to disclose the terms of the sale, but Schween said it will be disclosed in the paperwork submitted to the CRTC.

Neither anticipated any issues in obtaining the commission’s approval.

Pattison Media already owns two Winnipeg-based radio stations: 94.3 NOW! and QX 104.

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