By James Peters / Chad Harris

Newcap promises few changes at NL Broadcasting

May 10, 2017 | 6:30 AM

KAMLOOPS — Newcap Radio says Kamloops won’t see much change with the national broadcasting company’s purchase of a local radio group.

The Newcap purchase of NL Broadcasting must still be approved by the CRTC before it becomes official.

Chief Operating Officer Ian Lurie says his company has coveted NL for a long time, and had been in contact with Majority Owner Robbie Dunn.

“We saw growth in the town of Kamloops, and stability in that community. With the heritage properties that they are, we were always coveting them. It goes back 10-15 years, I (told) Robbie, ‘When you are ready to sell, give me a call’,” said Lurie.

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Lurie says, even though some stations have migrated away from the AM dial in recent years, that won’t be the case with Radio NL.

“We are happy with the two FMs, they are both in the formats we are very comfortable with – country and classic hits. We run a lot of those formats in other markets, so we are very comfortable there. The AM is a news-talk station that is a local treasure. Basically we are happy to run it.”

He notes Canadian media ownership rules dictate a company can only own two FM stations in a market this size, and NL already owns two.

Lurie says it’s not looking to make big changes in formats or personnel.

“We have many small properties that are heritage properties in their market. We tend to operate them very locally. Our philosophy is local content is a really vital part of radio that distinguishes it from other more generic audio services.”

“We really don’t come in a cookie cutter way and say ‘this person goes, this person stays’. We have none of that kind of planning developed at this point. We take on the group, we think they do a good job. We have no reason to believe there will be any changes.”