Team radio

Leo Baggio, the new GM for B104 and The Drive in Cranbrook and CJDR in Fernie, is a big fan of his team

On October 1, 2012, the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group's Leo Baggio moved from Kamloops to Cranbrook to assume the position of general manager at B104, The Drive and CJDR. — Marie Milner photo

The Jim Pattison Broadcast Group, owner of 32 radio stations and three television stations in Western Canada, has its head office in Kamloops, B.C. On October 1 of this year, Leo Baggio, a former director of radio programming and operations for two Pattison-owned stations in Kamloops, moved to Cranbrook to take on the position of general manager of B104 and The Drive (in Cranbrook) and CJDR (in Fernie), also part of the Pattison group.

“I’m really excited,” Baggio said. “I am married with young children, and in my research into this opportunity I kept running into the same three words about Cranbrook and southeast B.C.: quality of life. So I’m really excited about being here and being able to explore that and soak some of that up.”

A ready-made team

Ordinarily, team building would be a priority for a new manager, but Baggio said he’s been really buoyed by the fact that the existing team is so proficient and productive and has great chemistry.

“Oftentimes in my situation, when a position comes open it’s because there were problems and someone has been removed, and you go into a plant or a division that is dysfunctional at some level,” said Baggio. “With this operation, that’s anything but the truth. The former GM, Rod Schween, did such great work in Cranbrook and Lethbridge that he has been promoted to president of the company. So I’ve come into a position where I don’t have to worry about team building—I just have to make sure I don’t mess up the team that’s already here.”

The simple answer: service

Baggio is aware that the station scored high with readers of Kootenay Business magazine in the Best of Business survey, and he is confident that it’s because of what he called internal and external customer service. Taking care of the station’s advertisers and the listening audience is certainly important, and the team at B104 and The Drive is very good at doing that.

“Radio is a team game with a lot of interdependent departments,” Baggio said. “The group here pays impeccable attention to super-serving both groups of our clients—and then we have ourselves, where we have to practise internal customer service so that we all get along well and function as a team. I’m just so impressed by the level of customer service that is extended here in all three of those areas.”

Baggio does not anticipate any corporate drama for the radio station.

“If I can eventually bring in some different perspectives that can enhance the growth of the operation, that will be a bonus,” he said. “It’s premature for me to speculate how or when that might happen.”

The new GM said that Schween has left him a well-paved road, and he intends to follow it, continuing the successful trend of super-serving the advertisers, the listeners and the team.