Roberto Gonzalez’s MBM Revolution didn’t have any radio stations until it started buying them up last summer – now it is amassing an impressive collection of stations along the Rio Grande River, including six in McAllen-Brownsville with a little south-of-the-border spice.
The stations are coming from the bankrupt Border Media stable, under the care and feeding of W. Lawrence Patrick and the Border Media Business Trust.
The official licensee for the cluster will be MBM Texas Valley LLC. Joining Gonzalez on the company’s management roster is Carlos Rodriguez is on board as CEO.
The price is $2.5M cash, with a full 40%, or $1M, going into escrow.
The stations included in the cluster are less than top-notch; only the AMs are able to cover both of the cities listed in the market’s name.
The stations include:
* KBUC-FM Raymondville TX, a Class C2 on 102.1 MHz with 18 kW @ 758’. It covers turf to the north of the market, with a 60 dBu contour that fails to hit either city.
* KESO-FM South Padre Island TX, a Class C2 on 92.7 MHz with 38 kW @ 466’. It services the Brownsville, or eastern, side of the market.
* KZSP-FM South Padre Island TX, a Class A on 95.3 MHz with 2.9 kW @ 420’. It covers the area just east of Brownsville, not quite throwing its 60 dBu over the city.
* KJAV-FM Alamo TX, a Class A with 6 kW @ 324’. It covers the western McAllen portion of the market.
* KURV-AM Edinburg TX, a Class B on 710 kHz with 1 kW-D, 910 W-N, DA2. It just blankets both cities, and is better at night.
* KVJY-AM Pharr TX, a Class B on 840 kHz with 5 kW-D, 1 kW-N, DA2. It has the better daytime signal of the two, but fails to make it to Brownsville at night.
In addition to the US stations, MBM will be picking up advertising agreements with a quarter of stations across the border in Mexico, including XHAVO-FM, XHRR-FM, XHCAO-FM and XEGA-AM.
RBR-TVBR observation: Let’s take a look at what it cost to build this cluster: The deal for the station that is now KBUC was struck 7/10/02 for $8M; the stations that are now KESO-FM and KZSP-FM were part of a 5/6/04 deal valued at $6.6M; the station that is now KJAV-FM was sold in September 2004 for $7M. The AMs were sold with other AMs, so a direct comparison is not available, but a total of six AMs moved in two deals for a total of $11.25M.
The total for the FMs alone is $21.6M – that, compared to the $2.5M the cluster is fetching today, is bleak enough to not even bother making it worse by estimating a previous purchase price for the two AMs involved in the deal.
