Roberts Broadcasting

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Roberts Broadcasting Company is a media company based in St. Louis, Missouri. It is a subsidiary of the parent company, the Roberts Companies, one of the largest African American-owned conglomerates. It is co-owned by brothers Steven and Michael Roberts.

Contents

History

Problems

Roberts Broadcasting filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on October 7, 2011; the company cited the loss of the UPN affiliations for WRBU, WZRB, and WRBJ when that network shut down in favor of The CW in 2006, as much of UPN's programming consisted of minority-targeted programs that Roberts felt were compatible with their stations' target audiences (though the stations have since recovered from this setback; additionally, WAZE had instead affiliated with The WB prior to 2006, as it was owned by South Central Communications until February 2007). The company has also been hit with lawsuits from Warner Bros. Television, Twentieth Television, and CBS Television Distribution over fees for syndicated programming; Roberts eventually settled with Twentieth but lost the Warner Bros. and CBS cases. [1] [2]

On March 24, 2011, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) canceled WAZE's license for failure to construct its digital facilities. [3] However, the station continued to broadcast via their analog translator station network of three stations.

On February 20, 2012, Roberts Broadcasting announced it was exploring the possibility of selling one or all four of its television stations in order to raise enough cash to pay off its creditors. [4] On October 22, 2012, Roberts announced that it had sold WRBJ to Trinity Broadcasting Network; [5] the deal was approved by a bankruptcy court on January 17, 2013, [6] and TBN officially took over operational control of WRBJ five months later, on May 24, 2013. [7] The CW would return to the Jackson area on WJTV-DT2 in September 2013.

On January 3, 2013, the repeater network of WAZE ceased operations, with WTVW hurriedly joining the CW at the end of the month to maintain the network in the Evansville area. [8] In April 2013, WRBU dropped MeTV as a sub-channel; that network now airs in St. Louis on a KMOV sub-channel.

On December 2, 2013, Roberts filed to sell WZRB to Radiant Light Ministries, a subsidiary of Tri-State Christian Television, for $2 million. [9] On December 4, Roberts also filed to sell WRBU to TCT for $5.5 million. [10] However, on December 11, the United States bankruptcy court gave initial approval for a plan by Roberts' creditors to instead transfer WRBU, WZRB, and the WAZE repeaters to a trust with Ion Media Networks (a creditor in Roberts' Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings) as its beneficiary, with Roberts' attorney subsequently stating that Ion would purchase the stations for $7.75 million. [11] [12] Roberts had earlier proposed an alternate plan that would have had only the WAZE repeaters be transferred to the trust, which would have allowed the sale of WRBU and WZRB to TCT. [11] The FCC approved the deal on February 2, 2014, and both WZRB and WRBU became Ion Television O&O afterwards. WZRB would keep carrying CW as second affiliate, but WKTC announced that they would become a CW affiliate on March 17.

Stations

Radio station

MarketStationOwned SinceCurrent Format
Brandon-Jackson, Mississippi WRBJ-FM/97.72007 Urban Contemporary

Former television stations

City of license / Market StationChannel
TV (RF)		Years ownedCurrent ownership status
East St. Louis, Illinois/St. Louis, Missouri WRBU 46 (47)1989–2014 Ion Television owned-and-operated (O&O)
Cookville/Nashville, Tennessee WNPX-TV 28 (36)1997–1998Ion Television owned-and-operated (O&O)
Magee - Jackson, Mississippi WRBJ 34 (34)2006–2013 TBN owned-and-operated (O&O)
Columbia, South Carolina WZRB 47 (47)2005–2014Ion Television owned-and-operated (O&O)
Madisonville, Kentucky - Evansville, Indiana WAZE-TV 19 (20)2006–2011defunct, went dark in 2011
WAZE-LP
(former satellite of WAZE)		17 (analog only)2006–2013defunct
WJPS-LP
(former satellite of WAZE)		4 (analog only)2006–2013Defunct
WIKY-LP
(former satellite of WAZE)		5 (analog only)2006–2013Defunct

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References

  1. ↑ Malone, Michael (October 10, 2011). "Roberts Broadcasting Files For Bankruptcy". Broadcasting & Cable . Archived from the original on October 12, 2011. Retrieved October 10, 2011.
  2. ↑ Newkirk, Jacob (October 10, 2011). "WAZE Owner Roberts Broadcasting files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy". Evansville Courier & Press . Archived from the original on October 12, 2011. Retrieved October 10, 2011.
  3. ↑ Harding, Kevin (March 24, 2011). "Re: WAZE-TV, Madisonville, Missouri". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. Archived from the original on October 26, 2012. Retrieved March 30, 2011.
  4. ↑ "Roberts Broadcasting Mulls Sale of TV Stations" Archived 2012-02-22 at the Wayback Machine , St. Louis Post-Dispatch , February 20, 2012.
  5. ↑ "Roberts brothers' TV station in new hands" from The Clarion-Ledger (October 22, 2012)
  6. ↑ Brown, Lisa (January 18, 2013). "Roberts Cos.' Mississippi TV station sale approved". St. Louis Post-Dispatch . Archived from the original on October 3, 2018. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
  7. ↑ "NEW TBN FULL-POWER STATION SIGN-ON - Announcements". Archived from the original on 2013-11-09. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  8. ↑ Jake's DTV Blog: "WAZE-TV translators shut down", January 3, 2013. Archived December 18, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ "APPLICATION FOR CONSENT TO ASSIGNMENT OF BROADCAST STATION CONSTRUCTION PERMIT OR LICENSE (WZRB)". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. December 2, 2013. Archived from the original on December 7, 2013. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
  10. ↑ "APPLICATION FOR CONSENT TO ASSIGNMENT OF BROADCAST STATION CONSTRUCTION PERMIT OR LICENSE (WRBU)". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. December 4, 2013. Archived from the original on December 12, 2013. Retrieved December 9, 2013.
  11. 1 2 Mueller, Angela (December 11, 2013). "Judge approves creditors' proposal in Roberts Broadcasting bankruptcy". St. Louis Business Journal. Archived from the original on December 21, 2013. Retrieved December 11, 2013.
  12. ↑ Brown, Lisa (December 11, 2013). "Roberts' TV stations to be sold". St. Louis Post-Dispatch . Archived from the original on March 1, 2015. Retrieved December 11, 2013.
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