In February 2023, five months after his passing at the age of 83 of lung cancer, the estate of Tejano music pioneer and evangelical broadcast ministry owner Paulino Bernal was put in control of his wife, Mary Bernal, by a Hidalgo County, Tex., probate court.
Now, more than 15 months later, paperwork has been filed at the FCC that seeks to transfer Bernal’s Spanish-language religious AMs to the family matriarch.
Dan J. Alpert, working on behalf of the Bernal family, made the filing on May 24. It seeks regulatory approval for the shift of 100% ownership in KVOZ-AM 890 in Del Mar Hills, Tex., from Paulino to his estate, with Mary as executrix.
KVOZ has a 10kw daytime signal from 1 tower putting a signal over much of South Texas, including Corpus Christi and McAllen; it can be heard in much of San Antonio. At night, it uses a 3-tower array for 1kw of power to protect Class A WLS in Chicago.
Also shifting from Mr. Bernal’s control to the estate led by Mary is KUBR-AM 1210 in San Juan Hills, Tex., a Class B facility with 10kw during daylight hours and 5kw at night from 5 towers. KUBR serves the Rio Grande Valley, including Matamoros, Mexico.
The licensee of the stations, Consolidated Radio Inc., will remain in control of the property. As such, this is an internal change in ownership the Commission must approve.
What may be at issue for the Media Bureau, however, is the length of time the Bernal family took to make the filing following Paulino Bernal’s passing and subsequent probate court ruling.
To complicate matters, the son of Mr. Bernal, Paulino Bernal Jr., died on September 15, 2022 — just five days after his father’s passing.
While Mr. Bernal has been associated in recent years with La Radio Cristiana Network Inc., he enjoyed a career earlier in life as a member of Conjunto Bernal, one of the first Tejano music groups to gain prominence in South Texas. In the 1970s he became a born-again Christian, shifting his attention to non-secular music.
