At the end of 2022, Jon Pole and Andrew Dickson, the co-founders of Renfrew, Ont.-based My Broadcasting Corp., signed off on an asset purchase agreement giving them 100% of the stock in Border International Inc. held by Rogers Sports & Media.
Rogers’ holdings in the licensee was maxed out at 20%, given its status as a Canadian owner. Now, Pole and Dickson want the FCC to allow it to acquire the 80% interest in Border International held by three shareholders.
With that approval from the FCC, Border intends to pay David Mance, Jack Clancy and Craig Harris to acquire WLYK-FM 102.7 in Cape Vincent, N.Y., outright.
Since taking control of the station from Rogers, the station shifted from Top 40 “KISS 102.7” to Classic Hits as “Lake FM.” Rogers earned $325,000 USD from the sale of its stake in the station, which is marketed to the Kingston, Ontario, market across the St. Lawrence River from Cape Vincent, making it geographically closer to Watertown, N.Y., the nearest stateside city of size.
In August 2022, Pole made headlines by agreeing to purchase Classic Rock CIXL-FM 91.7, a 50kw Class B FM licensed to Welland, and Class B1 Country CKYY-FM 89.1, also in Welland, from David Holgate and his R.B. Communications for an undisclosed price.
At the time, Pole told RBR+TVBR, “The U.S. side of the border would not be a high priority for us going out of the gate,” he says. “Our focus has been superserving the local audience and our local advertisers. The core focus will be the Niagara region.”
Now, Pole wants to superserve Kingston, Ont., will full ownership of WLYK, so it can more effectively compete against against Corus, owner of top-rated “BIG FM”; and iHeartMedia Canada-run Bell Media FMs, each of which have two stations in the market.
To gain regulatory approval from the FCC, Border on January 12 filed a Petition for Declaratory Ruling allowing it to surpass the 25% foreign ownership benchmark, going up to 100% foreign ownership. The Commission is finally acting on the request, and has set up a comment period to allow the public to share their thoughts. Comments are due June 5; the Reply Comment Date is June 20.
