Ennis Enters TV Market With Deals for 6 Stations

Indianapolis-based radio station owner Emmis Broadcasting Corp. has agreed to pay $307 million in cash and stock to buy four television stations from New York-based SF Broadcasting, which is owned 50-50 by USA Networks Inc. and News Corp.’s Fox. The stations are in Honolulu; New Orleans; Mobile, Ala.; and Green Bay, Wis.

In a separate deal, Emmis will buy two stations from privately held Wabash Valley Broadcasting, also based in Indianapolis, for $90 million. Those stations are in Terra Haute, Ind., and Fort Myers, Fla.

The purchases would mark Emmis’ entree into TV. The deals are expected to close by late summer, subject to regulatory approval.

Emmis named Greg Nathanson, currently president of programming and development for News Corp.’s Twentieth Television, to head its new TV division. Nathanson, who joined Twentieth Television in 1996 from Los Angeles-based KTLA, is an Emmis investor and has known Emmis Chairman Jeffrey Smulyan since the two attended USC.

In a phone interview, Smulyan said there is a great opportunity for Emmis to grow “pretty dramatically” in the TV area. He said the six stations--five are Fox affiliates and one is a CBS affiliate--would provide a solid platform from which to build Emmis’ TV strategy and to leverage its radio and publishing operations.

Emmis owns 13 radio stations, including Los Angeles’ KPWR-FM (106), and publishes four regional magazines: Texas Monthly, Atlanta, Indianapolis Monthly and Cincinnati Magazine.

The deal would give USA Networks a much-needed cash infusion in the wake of a flurry of deals. USA acquired the USA Network, the Sci-Fi Channel and other TV assets from Seagram’s Universal Studios for about $4.1 billion in cash and stock in October 1997. Last month, USA Networks agreed to acquire the half of Los Angeles-based Ticketmaster it didn’t already own.