and why did Bonneville want to “cash out” in the radio business, possibly at the bottom of the market (or not)….
I know almost nothing about Hubbard, which by itself says a lot. As our resident radio historian points out, they only own three radio stations now, all in Minneapolis St Paul. One is that God awful “chick/gay” station that Ian Punnett works for in the mornings (that I wrote about maybe a week ago). They also own KSTP-AM 1500, which recently dropped news/talk to go to ESPN. They also own KSTP-FM which runs music. The three stations combined are about 8% of the listening in the #16 market. The FCC ownership report also lists WIXK-AM which is missing from Wikipedia 8^P WIXK is a country station over the border in Wisconsin that reaches into the Eastern half of the Twin Cities.
What Hubbard owns is 13 TV stations – in the Minnesota market, and New Mexico.
Since Bonneville is privately owned by the Mormon church,there is no publicly available financial data that I’m aware of.
The FCC Ownership report for Hubbard lists KINNIMAKA TRUST of South Dakota as the owner. The trust was formed in 2008. It is wholly owned by “STANLEY S. HUBBARD REVOCABLE TRUST”. Confused yet? Trust me.
Who is Stanley S Hubbard? Biography
He inherited the media empire from his father and is in his late 70s. There are way too many parallels here with WOR and Buckley broadcasting…. Here is an interesting “old school” quote from him:
“I believe an awful lot of money is wasted on the Internet,” he said. “It“s interesting to note that when people want to get you to their Web site, where do they advertise? Television. I think the Internet is a good place for your catalog. If you have to build brand, you can“t build brand on the Internet.”
Tell that to facebook :)
There are no details on file at the FCC yet. In the absence of facts, this smells like a private equity firm rolling together two bad investments. The “purchase price” usually includes assumption of debt. That $505 million may actually involve very little cash. It just makes no sense that guy pushing 80 would plop down half a billion dollars to buy radio stations. Over the Air TV stations have been falling into receivershp all over the place. I really doubt he is sitting on a pile of cash. The one source I see so far says his net worth is about $1.6 billion, but a big chunk of that is probably the TV stations. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs put this deal together.
None of the Bonneville people are moving to Minnesota – the stations will be managed from where they are now by Bonneville’s soon to be ex-employees.
My theory is predicated on the idea that Bonneville is carrying debt, which I would not have thought likely. On the other hand, apparently they paid $158 million in 2000 (can we say “just before the crash”?) just for WDRV-FM and its simulcast partner in Chicago. Bonneville acquired the original WTOP-AM (now WFED-AM) in 1997. They got three Phoenix stations in 2004 for WLUP-FM (Chicago) + $70 million in cash. Perhaps they are sitting on $500 million in debt…
