NBC Has Deal To Sell KWHY In LA

NBCU will sell its Spanish-language independent KWHY-TV Los Angeles to investment company The Meruelo Group, subject to Federal Communications Commission approval.

The agreement comes before the planned Jan. 28 close of the Comcast joint venture agreement. Terms were not disclosed; Telemundo paid $239 million when it bought the station in 2001. NBC had originally asked the commission for a temporary, six-month extension of its waiver of the FCC ownership rules to continue owning three stations in the market. The station group promised that within six months of the NBCU-Comcast deal's close, it would either sell KWHY, one of its three stations there, or put it in a trust. But it subsequently indicated it did not need the waiver and would get a deal done. The company also pledged to try and find a minority buyer as one of a number of pledges by Comcast/NBCU to promote diversity in programming and ownership. NBCU will put the station in a separate trust, Bahia Honday LLC, upon closing of the merger. The trust will handle the sale and regulatory approval process. The deal is expected to be done by midyear.