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Sacramento media mogul moves to pull plug on radio, TV stations [The Sacramento Bee, Calif.](Sacramento Bee (CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) July 05--Amador Bustos, a farmworker's son and Mexico native, built a Sacramento-based media empire that reached Spanish-speaking listeners around the nation through 28 radio and TV stations. It all came crashing down this week. Bustos paid the awful price for making acquisitions just before the recession. The subsequent economic storm swamped his company and his dreams. Bustos Media LLC -- operator of radio and TV stations in California, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Colorado and Wisconsin -- on Wednesday filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to transfer its licenses to NAP Broadcast Holdings, composed of Bustos' three lenders. If the application is approved, Bustos Media LLC will cease to exist. Bustos' holdings include TV station KSTV (Channel 32) in Sacramento. Its other TV stations are in Milwaukee and Salt Lake City. Among the company's 25 radio stations are KLMG (97.9 FM) in Esparto and KGRB (94.3 FM) in Jackson, both of which broadcast into the Sacramento-area market. The company has about 160 employees, who are expected to keep their jobs, Bustos said. At one time, the company employed more than 200. Bustos, the company's president and CEO, resigned as part of the deal, as did his brother, John Bustos, who was vice president of operations. Jay Meyers, who runs a radio consulting firm called Broadcast Management & Technology and has been working to restructure Bustos Media, will serve as interim CEO pending FCC approval of the transfers. The Bustos brothers informed their staff at 3 p.m. Wednesday in a mass e-mail that said in part: "We all worked hard to develop the new emerging Hispanic markets, but the economic downturn and the timing of our purchases were not favorable. "I am confident that with the support of the new ownership the staff will continue to build these stations to their fullest potential. -- This is not 'adios' but 'hasta pronto.' " Bustos said Thursday that acquisitions made from 2005 to 2007 became a huge burden in 2008. "Those were the very high periods before the downturn," he said. "Obviously, properties were expensive. -- We paid too much at the wrong time." Meyers has been in Sacramento since December, when Bustos' lenders made him chief restructuring officer. He said the firm stopped making payments on its loans sometime in 2008 or 2009. Meyers called the takeover "very friendly" compared with others he has seen in broadcasting, where lenders forced debtors into receivership or bankruptcy. NAP consists of Boston's NewStar Financial, Atalaya Capital of New York and an affiliate of Prudential Insurance Co. Atalaya partner Michael Bogdan said the group bought the Bustos loan from the original lender, whom he would not identify. Meyers said NAP is "here for the long haul. They're not here to sell properties or change formats. There won't be any liquidations. There won't be any format changes." He added that he does not anticipate mass layoffs. The corporate headquarters will remain in Sacramento. Amador Bustos said he was happy that the company he once ran will stay intact. "They did not foreclose -- which means that they saw enough value in the assets that once this tsunami of an economic situation passes, they will do much better." Meyers called Bustos "a pretty decent visionary" and said the firm's revenue was "having an uptick this year" after dropping off badly in 2009. He wouldn't elaborate. Julio Rumbaut, of the Rumbaut & Co. Spanish media consulting firm in Miami, said Bustos' woes were heightened by having properties in "secondary" Spanish language markets instead of larger cities that attract most of the advertising dollars. "There's a finite number of dollars for Spanish broadcasting," Rumbaut said. But Federico Subervi, a Texas State University expert on Spanish-language media, said the firm's demise simply reflects turmoil in the larger media world. The recession took a big bite out of advertising, and the market is becoming increasingly competitive and fragmented. "Nobody's immune," he said. "I don't think Spanish language media are suffering particularly. The downturn is across the board." For Bustos, losing the company is a sad chapter in an otherwise storybook career. Born in Aguililla, Mexico, he moved to Redwood City as a teenager, eventually earning a degree from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1980, he started work at KNBR radio in San Francisco, then became an ad salesman for Spanish-language broadcasters in the Bay Area. In 1992, backed by a venture capital firm, he spent $3 million buying Spanish-language radio stations in Sacramento, Fresno and Concord. His Z-Spanish Media Corp. had grown to 33 stations by the time he sold it eight years later for $475 million to Entravision Communications Corp. Bustos started building his second empire in 2004 when he formed Bustos Media LLC. Its growth was fueled by $103 million in equity financing. Bustos said he will continue to operate Bustos Media Holdings LLC, a family-owned company that predates Bustos Media LLC. He said he will complete construction of radio stations KTRP AM and KZPT FM), which will serve the Portland, Ore./Vancouver, Wash. markets. He also said he will continue to manage his independently owned stations serving the Vietnamese community in San Jose (KZSJ AM), Houston (KREH AM) and Dallas (KTXV AM). In addition, Bustos said he and his brother, John, will explore opportunities in new technologies and green energy. He did not elaborate. ------ Call The Bee's Mark Glover, (916) 321-1184. To see more of The Sacramento Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sacbee.com/. Copyright (c) 2010, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544) |