If there was a competition to become the most prolific buyer of radio or TV stations in 2018, there’s no question who would come out on top.
Philip Falcone and his HC2 Station Group has been snapping up TV properties left and right since the start of the year, continuing a buying trend that began with the end of the FCC’s Spectrum Auction.
HC2 is at it again, and just acquired a channel-sharing agreement forged by a full-powered UHF station serving a university town in the Lone Star State that’s giving up its spectrum to the benefit of wireless service providers.
For $225,000, HC2 is snagging the CSA associated with soon-to-disappear KCEB-54 in Tyler-Longview, Tex.
The market is home to University of Texas at Tyler Longview and Christ-centered LeTourneau University, in addition to Vista College.
The seller of KCEB is KCEB License Co. and, more importantly, London Broadcasting Co.
That’s the entity that in September 2017 sold KTXD-47, licensed to Greenville, Tex., and serving the Dallas-Fort Worth market — officially its last wholly owned station.
Now, London and its licensee partner are saying goodbye to KCEB in a transaction that sees 50% payment at closing and the remainder due within five business days of the FCC issuing a Construction Permit for the CSA.
Interestingly, KCEB is not sharing with a Tyler-based LPTV facility. Rather, its CSA is with the Wray family’s ABC affiliate KTBS-3 in Shreveport, La., some 100 miles to the east. KTBS has an over-the-air signal viewable in Longview, but not Tyler.
That may be enough to win MVPD coverage across the DMA—or not. Tyler-Longview has its own stations, and the ABC affiliate carried on Suddenlink by Altice lineups in Tyler is Raycom Media-owned KLTV-7. KCEB has been on cable channel 14; this could be continued but the shift to Shreveport DMA could put cable carriage in question.
In Longview, KTBS does have a cable TV presence.
A $40,000 escrow deposit has been made by the buyer, which in addition to snapping up LPTVs and full-power TV stations over the last several months is now the owner of the Azteca América Spanish-language broadcast TV network.
There is no broker associated with this transaction.
Serving as London’s legal counsel in this sale is Jessica Rosenthal of Wiley Rein LLP.
HC2 Holdings’ legal counsel is Trey Hanbury of Hogan Levells US LLP.
KCEB-54 is a SonLife affiliate, and airs the non-commercial religious network’s programming slate.
KCEB License Co. earned $8,554,719 in the Spectrum Auction for relinquishing the spectrum tied to KCEB-54, which from 2006-2012 was an affiliate of The CW and signed on as a UPN affiliate in 2003.
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