Craig Wireless


Craig Wireless Systems, Ltd. is a Canadian company which offers Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service in Manitoba and British Columbia.

History

The company has its roots in Craig Broadcast Systems, which was founded in the early 1970s by Stuart Craig.
In the mid-1940s, Craig's father, John, had bought radio station CKX-FM from the Manitoba Government Telephone System upon its relinquishment of its two licenses for CKX & CKY-FM.
By 1955, Craig had succeeded his father as President and General Manager of CKX-TV & CKX-FM. Craig took it upon himself to expand the operations of both CKX stations; those expansion operations resulted in the launch of the broadcast company.
The company was based in Brandon, Manitoba, then later in Calgary, Alberta with Drew Craig, John's grandson & Stuart's son, as its CEO. Craig Broadcast Systems was the owner of the original A-Channel system; CKX, a CBC affiliate, in Brandon, Manitoba; Toronto One, local television station in located in Toronto; and three digital television specialty channels: MTV Canada, MTV2 and TV Land Canada. For a time in the 1980s and 1990s, the company also produced a local newscast in Dauphin, Manitoba; however, the company did not operate a full television station in that city, but had a contract with CBC Television to run the newscast as a local insertion on the city's CBWT retransmitter.
Eventually, the company was also operating in the telecommunications industry, offering wireless cable television and high-speed Internet services.
In 2003, after securing financing in the area of $145 million, the company reorganized its conventional and specialty television operations under the Craig Media branding.
In 2004, the company was acquired by CHUM Limited. CHUM did not acquire the company's telecommunications operations, which remain in operation under the Craig Wireless name, which the company took on after CHUM's acquisition of its television broadcasting assets. Upon the name change, another of John's grandsons, Boyd, took over the company.

Former assets

Local stations