Spanish-language broadcaster buying KFTY

<p>Santa Rosa television station KFTY TV-50 is being acquired by a Texas broadcasting chain that plans to convert it into an affiliate of the Spanish-language network Azteca America.</p><p>Una Vez Mas, a Dallas company that owns TV stations across the southern United States, announced a deal Thursday to purchase KFTY from High Plains Broadcasting of Kaw City, Okla.</p><p>Financial terms were not disclosed.</p><p>The deal will give Una Vez Mas — a Spanish phrase meaning “Once Again” — an entrance into the Bay Area television market, which has one of the nation's largest audiences of Spanish-speaking viewers.</p><p>“San Francisco is now the ninth-largest Spanish-language television market with more than 390,000 Hispanic households and an ideal place for UVM to expand its footprint,” Terry Crosby, CEO of Una Vez Mas, said in a statement.</p><p>Marcos Suarez, president of the Sonoma County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a sales account manager for San Jose station Telemundo KSTS TV-48, said the sale will increase Azteca America's presence in the Bay Area, where it currently broadcasts on a digital subchannel of KOFY. He said it's a sign of the growing influence of Hispanics, which make up 23 percent of the Bay Area's population and are forecast to purchase $44 billion in goods annually by 2015.</p><p>“When you're a business, you want to have access to that 23 percent,” Suarez said.</p><p>The purchase still must win approval from the Federal Communications Commission. Both sides expect such approval within 90 days.</p><p>“Until the deal closes, the television station will continue to operate business as usual,” said High Plains spokesman Jonathan Doorley. “They'll be no impact on the value delivered to our viewers or advertisers.”</p><p>KFTY was founded in 1981 by Wishard Brown, former publisher of the Marin Independent Journal. Over the years the station has passed through a series of owners, including Gary Heck of Korbel Champagne Cellars.</p><p>Una Vez Mas was founded in 2002 and became an Alta Communications portfolio company in 2006. The company, which is the largest affiliate of Azteca America, owns television stations in Santa Barbara, Las Vegas, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Phoenix, Tucson, Atlanta, Tampa and Washington, D.C.</p><p>A spokesman for Una Vez Mas said it remains too early to answer questions about how many staff members will work in Santa Rosa, as well as what business activities will be located here. KFTY currently has eight employees in Santa Rosa.</p><p>KFTY is owned by High Plains and operated by Newport Television of Kansas City, Mo. The station dropped most of its local news programming in 2007. In April, KFTY announced it had become an affiliate of the fledgling Me-TV Network, which broadcasts reruns targeted at viewers age 35 and older, ranging from sit-coms like “Hogan's Heroes” and “M*A*S*H” to dramas like “Gunsmoke” and “Big Valley.”</p><p>That programming format will remain in place until the sale becomes complete, Doorley said.</p>