Standard Broadcasting

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This article is about the history of Standard Broadcasting Corp., its remaining operations and its former radio & TV broadcasting assets, now owned by Astral Media Inc.

Standard Broadcasting Corporation Ltd. was a Canadian radio broadcasting company. It was founded as Standard Radio Manufacturing in 1925 Edward S. Rogers, Sr. but soon became known as Rogers Vacuum Tube Company and later became the Rogers Majestic Corporation Limited.^[1]

Rogers launched what would become radio station CFRB in 1927 in order to demonstrate a batteryless alternating current radio transmitter he had invented. The broadcasting division of the company was renamed Standard Radio Limited in 1941 when the Rogers family sold off the assets of Rogers Magestic two years after the death of Edward Rogers. In 1945, Standard Radio was purchased by Argus Corporation and in 1966 Standard Radio Limited was renamed Standard Broadcasting.^[1]

Argus was acquired by Conrad Black and his brother in 1978. In 1985, they sold Standard Broadcasting to J. Allan Slaight who merged it with his own Slaight Broadcasting Inc. It was the largest privately-owned multimedia company in Canada until it sold its radio and TV broadcasting assets to Astral Media Inc.^[1]

Through its former Standard Radio subsidiary, the company under Slaight operated 82 radio stations in English Canada and two television stations in northern British Columbia. It also owned a significant minority interest in the radio station operators Milestone Radio, Haliburton Broadcasting Group and 3937844 Canada Inc. in Canada, and Martz Communications Group in the US. The company also operated divisions in e-commerce, videotape and DVD distribution, retail marketing and audio and video post-production.^[1]

In 2006, the company announced an initial public offering via an income trust; these plans were later cancelled due to "market conditions". On February 23, 2007, Astral Media 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.^[2] A formal agreement was later announced, with the proposed transaction being approved by the CRTC on September 28, 2007.

Standard Broadcasting continues to operate following the sale, as Astral did not acquire the company's Internet and satellite radio assets, nor its minority interests in various other radio stations.^[3] The transaction was finalized on October 29, 2007.

1 Current assets
2 Assets of now-defunct subsidiary Standard Radio Inc.
3 References

[edit] Current assets

After selling its Standard Radio assets to Astral Media in October 2007, Standard Broadcasting is the owner and operator of Internet radio portal Iceberg Radio and is also partnered with Sirius Satellite Radio and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Sirius Canada.

The company also retains its minority shares in the Haliburton, Milestone and Martz radio groups.

Standard's minority share in 3937844 Canada was also not transferred to Astral, but was wholly acquired by its majority owner, Newcap Broadcasting, in a separate transaction which also took place in 2007.