'Nightly Business Report' Sold by PBS Station

"Nightly Business Report" on PBS, by some measures the nation's most-watched business newscast, has been acquired from its owner, the public station WPBT-TV in Miami, by a private company headed by Mykalai Kontilai, a former manager of mixed martial artists and distributor of instructional television programs.

The move is the second major change in the last year for the half-hour program. In December, Paul Kangas, an anchor who had been with the program since its founding 31 years ago, retired, and the program was redesigned, with Tom Hudson in Miami and Susie Gharib at the New York Stock Exchange as anchors. About 500,000 viewers tune in nightly. Like many public television programs, "Nightly Business Report" has struggled recently to find enough corporate underwriting sponsors.