CORAL GABLES, FLA. — In a crowded television market that includes flagship properties from NBCUniversal’s Telemundo, Spanish Broadcasting System’s MegaTV and Univision Communications, in addition to Estrella Media’s owned-and-operated home for EstrellaTV, a pair of television stations have carved a niche of late as a local news source — en español — with a Conservative lean.
That programming tilt will soon be expanding to an AM radio station that has been offering a more balanced Spanish-language spoken word format for several years, thanks to a transaction that sees the executive of a “Put” agreement.
América TeVe parent ATV Holdings Inc., which recently emerged from debtor-in-possession status, is moving forward with a previously executed plan to one day purchase WSUA-AM 1260 in Miami.
It is licensed to “WSUA Broadcasting Corp.,” a domestic subsidiary of Madrid-based Spanish-language media giant Grupo PRISA.
The deal puts WSUA in the hands of Marcell Felipe and Carlos Vasallo.
That led Florida’s Democratic Party to go ballistic, assailing the transaction for its supposed squelching of non-conservative views on WSUA thanks to programming changes that, in its view, favor Republicans. Newsweek even covered the Democrats’ take on the deal, ahead of Friday’s Form 314 filing made with the Commission.
The deal includes WSUA, a Class B branded as “Caracol 1260,” and W232DX at 94.3 MHz, an FM translator serving Miami-Dade County’s western metropolitan area.
And, paperwork confirms ATV on April 5 gained control of WSUA, leading to the programming shift; Miami’s Spanish-language Talk stations have historically leaned conservative, and during the 1980s and 1990s gained listeners for their staunch anti-Castro stance, winning over Cuban immigrants.
The deal is valued at $350,000, and will see ATV assume WSUA’s tower lease agreements with Pax Catholic Communications.
The payment structure sees ATV pay $250,000 by August 31. The remaining funds are to be paid by the end of 2021.
ATV’s purchase of WSUA is one of the first transactions to seek FCC approval following the Supreme Court’s unanimous reversal of a Third Circuit Appeals Court remand of the Commission’s cross-ownership rule rewrite.
