3 Distributors Seek to Force TV Station Into Liquidation

MCA Television and two other prominent television program distributors have filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against an independent Boston television broadcaster controlled by Santa Monica businessman Byron Lasky.

The petition appears to be the latest evidence of financial troubles afflicting the nation’s non-network TV stations. Many are saddled with high costs of acquiring original programs just as advertising revenues have leveled off.

MCA, Paramount Television Domestic Distribution and 20th Century Fox Television said in the bankruptcy petition filed this week in Los Angeles federal court that WQTV Inc., which operated Boston’s Channel 68, hadn’t paid them anything in six months.

Lasky was out-of-town and unavailable for comment Tuesday.

Ernest Goodman, an MCA Television vice president, said in an interview that Lasky and his partners plan to sell the station, but the new owners won’t assume its programming contracts with the distributors. An outside lawyer for MCA said the station may already have been sold.

Goodman said MCA Television sued WQTV Inc. in Los Angeles Superior Court last October for non-payment. That suit is still pending. The bankruptcy petition filed against WQTV Inc. comes less than a month after another big independent station operator filed for protection against its creditors. Grant Broadcasting System, which owns television stations in Chicago, Philadelphia and Miami, filed a voluntary petition for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code on Dec. 9. MCA and Fox are also Grant creditors.

Grant, like many independent television stations throughout the nation, paid dearly for syndicated television shows but watched profits wane as competition increased and advertising revenue declined. Several of Grant’s creditors who are television program distributors reportedly want to operate Grant’s stations to help satisfy a $200-million debt.

MCA, Paramount and Fox filed the involuntary Chapter 7 liquidation petition against WQTV late Monday. According to the bankruptcy filing, WQTV owes MCA Television about $3.5 million. It owes Paramount Television about $2.3 million and it owes 20th Century Fox Television about $42,625. The firms supplied WQTV with syndicated television programs.

WQTV was one of several television stations operated by Lasky’s Santa Monica-based Arlington Broadcast Group.