NRJ Holdings is a relative newcomer to the television group ranks, and already had a full power Los Angeles television station in its portfolio and a deal for a Class A in the works. Now it has filed to buy two more Class As in a deal loaded with ROI for seller Local Media TV of Los Angeles.
NRJ is headed by Robert G. Andrews and Ted B. Bartley. The seller’s principals include Paul Koplin and Lawrence Rogow.
The stations on the table are Channel 25 KNET-CD and Channel 50 KNLA-CD.
Local Media paid $16M to get the stations in what was somewhat of an intramural deal – Koplin and Rogow had interests in both the buyer and seller in that one.
The price this time is a little bit higher: $59.225M. NRJ will put down $4,441,875 in earnest money and pay the rest off in cash. $1.5M will be placed in a holdback escrow account.
The contract specifies that the stations must retain their Class A status, a very important asset in advance of incentive spectrum auctions – on the one hand, Class A status affords much greater protection than that afforded to standard LPTVs (at the price of imposing extra responsibilities on the licensees); and Class A stations have the option of participating in the auctions.
NRJ paid $45M to acquire Channel 18 KSCI-TV Long Beach in a deal that also included a full power station in Honolulu and a low power in the San Diego area.
It has pending a $5.7M deal to acquire Channel 45 KSKJ-CD Van Nuys CA.
