Some 90 weeks ago, the publicly traded Hispanic media company founded in 1983 by Raúl Alarcón Jr. agreed to reenter the Houston market. Rather than operate a TV station, however, Spanish Broadcasting System struck a deal to acquire a 40kw Class C1 facility serving Houston from the southern metro city of Seabrook, Tex.
It wouldn’t be until the end of 2024 that a closing date would come. But, the delay has little to do with the structure of this deal with Urban One.
Rather, SBS had to resolve the failed sale of its Mega TV assets, which included a lease-back of the Pablo Raul Alarcon Media Center in Miami and its San Juan, Puerto Rico offices and studios. With Jose Molina as Chief Financial Officer and Albert Rodriguez as President/COO, SBS moved ahead with a $64 million transaction that would have seen all of its television industry assets and company real estate sold to VOZ Media. However, the Texas media enterprise that purposed to be a “FOX Media en español” and was largely known for its online content distribution couldn’t complete the deal due to a lack of funds.
This led to a deal unwind, the early 2024 departures of Rodriguez and Molina, and a multimillion dollar settlement announced in March of this year.
As SBS dealt with what to do next with its TV assets, now that its “discontinued operations” weren’t being sold anytime soon, it worked with the Alfred Liggins III-led Urban One on pushing out the closing date for its acquisition of KROI-FM, the Houston market FM that in its past had been Top 40 and an all-News station before adopting a Black Gospel format.
On December 24, in a SEC filing, SBS affirmed that after announcing in April 2023 that it would purchase the station for $7.5 million, it had completed the deal at that agreed-to price.
This was accomplished on December 20, when the last remaining payment of $1.1 million was made “with immediately available funds.”
As a result, SBS is back in Houston and as previously reported has shifted KROI to Regional Mexican as “La Raza,” with market veteran Raul Brindis in morning drive.
From 2011 until 2020, SBS was present in the market with a Mega TV O&O property: KTBU-TV. It acquired the station for $16 million from US Farm & Ranch Supply Company and ended up selling it to TEGNA for $15 million.
