Alan J. Sokol
InterMedia Partners, the private equity firm that owns the Puerto Rican broadcast network WAPA Television and the cable channels WAPA America and Cine Latino, announced on Wednesday that it would merge its Spanish language properties under the Azteca Acquisition Corporation to form a new Hispanic media company called the Hemisphere Media Group.
The new company will have its headquarters in Miami, where the two largest Spanish language broadcasters in the United States, Univision and Telemundo, are also based.
Alan J. Sokol, a senior partner at InterMedia who will become the chief executive of Hemisphere Media, said the company’s goal was to offer alternative programming for Spanish speaking Puerto Ricans and other Latinos in the United States, not to compete directly with the Telemundo or Univision.
“Univision and Telemundo are primarily targeted to the Mexican population in the United States,” Mr. Sokol said. “That leaves a significant part of the audience underserved.”
Azteca Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition corporation, was set up by the private equity investor Gabriel Brener. It raised $100 million in an initial public offering of stock in July 2011. The transaction announced on Wednesday is valued at $400 million: $100 million from Azteca and $300 million from the combined value of the InterMedia properties.
InterMedia will continue to own a majority share in the company. The remaining shares will be publicly traded.
“We are thrilled to be merging with and taking public these exciting, highly profitable and complementary companies, which have performed exceptionally under the operational and industry expertise of Alan Sokol and his teams,” Mr. Brener, the chief executive of Azteca Acquisition, said in a statement. “Hemisphere will meet the growing media demands of Hispanic consumers.”
Mr. Sokol, who was the chief operating officer at Telemundo before joining InterMedia, said that unlike traditional private equity firms, which take over ailing companies and cut their budgets, InterMedia plans to build Hemisphere Media.
“We’re doubling down,” Mr Sokol said. “Our intent is to have a public platform that we can grow and create an even bigger Hispanic media media business.”
InterMedia bought WAPA in 2007 from LIN TV for $130 million.
“We’ve owned these assets for five years,” Mr. Sokol said. “We’ve built them. We’ve nurtured them. We’re big believers in them.”
WAPA TV had its share of controversy this fall, when La Comay, an outspoken puppet that hosted the network’s most highly rated show, SuperXclusivo, was accused of making derogatory remarks about a slain publicist.
Antulio Kobbo Santarrosa, the puppeteer who played La Comay, resigned from the show this month after guidelines were put in place to manage the content of the show. The network is working on a replacement for SuperXclusivo, Mr. Sokol said.
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: January 23, 2013
An earlier version of this post misstated the job that Alan J. Sokol will take at Hemisphere Media. It is chief executive, not chief operating officer.
Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/intermedia-forms-media-group-focusing-on-puerto-rican-viewers/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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