The multimedia cluster operated by US Hispanic giant Univision on the Caribbean island territory of Puerto Rico figures to get a bit bigger. It has filed to acquire Channel 7 WSTE-TV in Ponce from Jerry B. Hartman's Siete Grande Television Inc. The price is 15.5M cash. It'll join television stations WLII-TV Caguas and its satellite, WSUR-TV Ponce, and will be cross-owned with WKAQ AM & FM San Juan, WYEL-AM/WUKQ-FM Mayaguez and WUKQ-AM Ponce.
SmartMedia observation: Although Puerto Rico is generally treated as one market for ratings purposes, it is basically a three-market island, with San Juan on the northeast shore, Mayaguez on the west and Ponce on the south central. With a sparsely populated, mountainous interior, broadcast clusters are traditionally given much wider latitude to grow past the ceiling than in a geographically-normal stateside market.
