As media companies divest, Stingray goes all in on radio

While others are retreating from the radio marketplace, Stingray Group Inc. is dashing in full throttle. The company has evolved to become Canada’s largest radio operator, with 98 stations across the country. The firm was founded by Eric Boyko in 2007 as a karaoke service. That same year, it purchased the Galaxie music platform from CBC/Radio-Canada for $65 million, renaming it Stingray Music. In 2018, it took over the Newcap broadcasting group of stations for $506 million, while it also bought the American internet radio service TuneIn last year. Steve Jones, president of the radio division, recently sat down with The Wire Report to discuss the state of the industry. He credits Boyko, now the company’s CEO, for migrating from a subscription-based service to the ad-driven medium of radio. “So, we brought not only the people but the DNA of an advertising-driven company,” Jones reports. “ vision there was prescient because we have seen a distinct move away from subscription-based models into advertising models.” Jones notes that even previously subscription-only platforms like Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video have gotten into the advertising market. All of this is happening at the same time as BCE Inc. subsidiary Bell Media is shedding radio properties — but Jones says his company has a different outlook than Bell. “Bell’s an interesting one because they made a very public… misstep in declaring radio is no longer a viable business,” he states. “Bell had a very clear strategy that they continue to operate under, which was to place radio in markets where they had TV.” Stingray, which declined to buy any Bell stations, operates in both large and small markets, all without the benefit of a television partner. “They divested from markets where they don’t have the economies of scale that having a TV operation allows them to have,” Jones explains. “I think their divestiture of radio wasn’t so much a declaration of radio’s ability to survive, more of a declaration of how Bell sees scale working to support radio and so do we.” In Stingray’s case, stations in larger centres like Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, and Halifax produce content that can then be syndicated to smaller stations in places like Gander, N.L., Miramichi, N.B., Cold Lake, Alta. and Kamloops, B.C. Local stations broadcast a mix of local programming and material generated by the larger cities. The company president is adamant there is still a place for radio in today’s entertainment landscape. “We continue to fight against that perception that radio is a dying medium,” Jones explains. “I think radio is definitely a legacy medium, it is a heritage medium, it is a medium of reinvention right now as it charts a path forward in a digital world.” “But it definitely has been a far more resilient medium when compared to other legacy and heritage mediums like TV or print journalism.” He concedes listenership and revenues have declined but surveys indicate that 80 per cent of Canadians tune in to a radio station at least once a week. “The biggest challenge we have is definitely the revenue issue in radio,” he notes. “It has declined and it’s hard to replace revenue when it goes away. It moves to a digital environment and we’ve struggled to replace .” Another issue radio has to contend with is the regulator, according to Jones, as he believes it takes too long to get decisions on broadcasting matters. “The CRTC remains a challenge for us and for our industry because of the slow pace of regulatory evolution,” Jones maintains. The commission is using an anachronistic model, he adds. “We continue to operate in a regulatory environment that was largely built in the 1970s,” he opines. “The level of ownership that a company can have in a single market has barely changed the level of Canadian content and the rules around the exposure of Canadian content were developed in an era when there was no Spotify, when there was no Apple Music, when there was no cable TV really.” Nowadays, the digital revolution means Canadian companies are competing on a global scale. Regulations should reflect that fact, Jones offers. “I think every day that goes by without meaningful change in the regulatory space is another bad day for Canadian radio, Canadian media and Canadian musicians… who are forced to make music under an outdated regulatory environment,” he states. Stingray would like to see companies allowed to operate four or more stations in a market, up from the current three. Instead of having competing firms chasing the same audience, a large conglomerate could broadcast three or four different formats while using economies of scale for administration. Jones began his radio career as an announcer in smaller markets. He later got into programming at Newcap and migrated to Stingray after the takeover, initially joining as a vice president before assuming the presidency in April 2024. He also worked for radio companies in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands — and, in case you couldn’t already tell, he plans to be in it for the long haul. “It is fun. It’s a great industry to work in,” he enthuses. “I have no plans to go anywhere.” ppark@thewirereport.ca

As media companies divest, Stingray goes all in on radio

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By Paul Park
|March 17, 2026

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As media companies divest, Stingray goes all in on radio

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