TORONTO -- Gary Slaight will soon be packing up the rock 'n' roll memorabilia that fills his second-floor office, including a Born in the USA poster signed by the Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen.
The chief executive officer and president of Standard Broadcasting Corp. Ltd. will be joining the suits upstairs to make way for the private radio broadcaster's recent acquisition of Toronto's CJEZ-FM. The easy-rock station's DJs and sales staff will be working side by side with Standard's second-floor properties, a pop-rock FM station and an AM talk-radio service.
Gary Slaight will leave reluctantly. He likes to be near the action.
"I will miss the environment," says Gary, the 51-year-old son of broadcasting entrepreneur Allan Slaight, in a rare interview. "There's a reason my office is still at the radio station and not up on the 11th floor."
The move upstairs is symbolic. Gary is finally shaking off the title of Allan's rebellious kid and, as a recent $380-million Telemedia Corp. radio acquisition shows, distinguishing himself as a deal maker in his own right. Standard and its rock 'n' roll CEO are growing up.
"Gary Slaight has grown from being the son of Allan into a genuine larger-than-life broadcaster. He is his own guy," says Dave Marsden, a veteran broadcaster of Toronto's FM radio scene.
Father and son are very different people. Draped in a short-sleeved black dress shirt and snug black pants, Gary looks very much the gracefully aging gentleman rocker. He roams the radio station's halls with a sly grin and is quick to share his views on the latest Top 40 hit with the DJs.
In contrast, father Allan favours business attire and is well connected on Bay Street. A minor legend in broadcasting circles, Allan helped build CHUM Ltd. and CanWest Global Communications Corp. before buying his own radio network from Conrad Black in 1985. For fun, he performs magic tricks and has written books on the subject.
Two years ago, Gary took over the reins of the family business, and some in the industry wondered if the outspoken music executive had the business sense to keep the company on track.
Gary is "star-driven, he's a rocker," says one Toronto broadcasting executive who asked not to be identified. "While his father ran [Standard] as a business, for Gary, it's a lifestyle choice."
While Allan was forging the beginnings of his radio empire in the early seventies, Gary dabbled in advertising before joining the music division at Warner Bros. as a promotion rep. He spent two years ferrying the likes of Alice Cooper and Van Morrison to and from concert gigs and late-night parties. He got into the ad side of the radio business and eventually found himself station manager of Toronto rock station Q107. In 1987, he was named president of Standard's radio operations, and in 2000 he was appointed president and CEO of the company. In addition to owning this country's largest private radio network, family-controlled Standard has extensive interests, including a video duplication business, a grocery-store food sampling operation and various Internet investments.
There are mixed feelings about Gary's tenure at Standard. Radio junkies are his biggest fans; he has a reputation for putting programming concerns ahead of commercial interests. But his critique of much-hyped digital radio has raised the ire of industry rivals.
"I'm of the opinion that digital slots might be used for other things other than radio," Gary says. CHUM and Rogers Communications Inc. "have invested a lot of time and money in it. I'm not convinced that at the end of the day the people that run those companies are so sure about what they're doing."
Standard made a big bet on the long-term future of conventional AM and FM radio in June last year. In a private transaction with the de Gaspe Beaubien family, Standard scooped up 60 of Telemedia's radio stations for $380-million. The Telemedia deal sparked a series of smaller transactions. Standard has spent much of the past 10 months buying, selling and swapping stations across the country with Rogers, CHUM, Craig Music & Entertainment Inc. and Newfoundland Capital Corp. Ltd. The flurry of deal making has pushed Standard's 13 stations to a network of 51 stretching from Vancouver to Montreal. Revenue is expected to jump to about $150-million annually from $85-million, a sizable chunk of the sector's $632-million in advertising sales.
Bay Street likes radio's economics. While television and daily newspapers have struggled during the past year's advertising slowdown, radio has been buoyant thanks to strong local ad markets. Radio's overhead costs look better, too. Federal regulations bar TV broadcasters from owning more than one TV station in a local market, except under special circumstances. Radio broadcasters, meanwhile, can own up to four local services -- a pair of FM and AM licences each.
As a private company, "we can move quickly, absolutely," Gary says. Standard expects to spend the next 12 to 24 months absorbing Telemedia, but future deals have not been ruled out, he says.
Gary concedes that he got the radio bug from Dad. But when it comes to hobbies, he'll stick with rock 'n' roll.
"I hate magic," Gary says. "When we were kids, my Dad used to make my brother and I watch him do tricks. It was like, 'Here we go again.' "