On May 2, 2011, Spanish Broadcasting System entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a broadcast station serving the Houston market for $16 million.
However, that transaction brought SBS a TV station — not a radio station, which SBS agreed to purchase late Thursday.
That transaction, part of a plan to grow SBS’s Mega TV operation (which is being sold to a Texas entrepreneur seeking to build a Spanish-language conservative-leaning news and political commentary channel), saw Spanish Broadcasting System double its full-power television station portfolio with a deal giving it KTBU-TV in Houston.
The deal was brokered by Kalil & Co. and saw $8 million in cash immediately delivered to the seller, US Farm & Ranch Supply Company. A Promissory Note for the remaining $8 million was executed.
It was a fire sale for US Farm & Ranch Supply, as the licensee bought the Conroe, Tex.-based station from Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church for $30 million in 2006. And, it made KTBU the second owned-and-operated Mega TV property.
However, by the start of 2020 SBS had made it clear that it was looking to spin assets deemed non-essential by the company. As such, it phoned Kalil & Co. and put KTBU on the market. It sold for $15 million, to TEGNA.
Today, KTBU is one of the stations that could be impacting Standard General‘s planned acquisition of TEGNA, a proposed transaction scheduled for a lengthy hearing in front of a FCC Administrative Law Judge. With weeks remaining before financing expires, Standard General, led by Soohyung Kim, is doing everything in its power to get regulatory approval while there is still time.
One of the fundamental requirements of the deal’s structure is to adhere to local ownership regulations should the proposed deal get regulatory approval and head to the finish line. As such, Standard General engineered a plan to transfer the following TEGNA stations to Cox Media Group:
- ABC affiliate KVUE-24 in Austin
- ABC affiliate WFAA-8 and Estrella TV affiliate KMPX-29 in Dallas-Fort Worth
- CBS affiliate KHOU-11 and Quest-affiliated KTBU-55 in Houston
That said, the common denominator is Apollo Global Management, a non-voting equity interest holder in TEGNA but the majority interest holder in Cox Media Group.
With much uncertainty regarding the TEGNA deal, one thing is for certain — its fate in Houston is indirectly tied to a television station acquired from SBS, now returning to the market with its purchase of KROI-FM 92.1.
