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Spanish-Language Radio Mogul Buys 24th Station

Posted on: Sunday, 16 October 2005, 15:00 CDT

By Clint Swett, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Oct. 14--Sacramento Spanish-language radio mogul Amador Bustos has purchased his 24th radio station, putting him closer to his goal of owning 50 stations within the next few years.

Bustos said Thursday that his Bustos Media LLC bought station WDDW-FM in Milwaukee for $10.2 million in cash from Denver-based NextMedia Group.

With 24 stations, Bustos said that his company ranks No. 5 among Spanish radio broadcasting companies in the United States.

The new station was an attractive property, Bustos said, because it's the only Spanish language station in a market with a population of more than 150,000 Latinos.

It converted to Spanish broadcasting from a country format about a month ago, Bustos said.

"For being such a large, industrial city, Milwaukee didn't have a single Spanish station" before the conversion, Bustos said. "This is virgin territory."

Bustos said NextMedia converted the station to Spanish programming when it bought Bustos Media's LaGranD syndicated package.

Spanish-language programming is one of the fastest-growing formats in the United States. According to Billboard Radio Monitor, the number of Spanish-language stations grew from 302 in 1998 to more than 670 this year.

That leap has been fueled by a growth in the Hispanic population -- from 35.6 million in 2000 to 41.3 million this year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Bustos originally made his mark in broadcasting in the 1990s when his company, Z-Spanish Media, built a network of 32 stations, which he sold to Entravision Communications Corp. for $450 million in 2000.

In 2003, Bustos Media began acquiring radio stations anew, backed by $103 million in equity funding from three investment firms.

His California portfolio includes two stations in Sacramento, one in Stockton/Modesto and one in Marysville/Yuba City.

He said he is negotiating to buy several more stations, though he declined to offer details.

"Our plan calls for up to 50 stations in 10 or so markets within the next two to four years," Bustos said. With his most recent purchase, Bustos is nearly halfway there.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

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Source: The Sacramento Bee

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