Freedom Papers to Buy New York TV Station

Freedom Newspapers Inc., a Santa Ana-based newspaper and television company, agreed Friday to buy the nation’s oldest television station for $57 million.

Freedom Newspapers, which owns the Orange County Register, 28 other daily newspapers and four television stations, will pay $22 million more for WRGB in Schenectady, N.Y., than current owner, Universal Communications Corp., paid for it in 1983.

“I suspect everybody is paying a premium these days for television stations,” said Michael Maloney, administrative assistant to Freedom Newspapers’ president, D. Robert Segal.

No information was immediately available on how the family-owned corporation would finance the deal, which is subject to Federal Communications Commission approval.

With approval, the sale could be concluded as early as January, about the time that estranged family shareholder Harry H. Hoiles expects to go to trial in his effort to dissolve the corporation in an attempt to get one-third of the assets.

Harry Hoiles has made three offers in the last two months to buy out the other two branches of founder R.C. Hoiles’ heirs. The first two offers were rejected and the third--for $682.5 million for the remaining shares--is pending.

WRGB, a CBS affiliate which broadcasts over Channel 6, is one of the leading stations in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy market, which ranks as the 50th largest market in the country.

It began as an experimental station built by General Electric Corp., which is based in Schenectady. The first broadcast was made in 1928, well before WNBT in New York City began the nation’s first licensed commercial station.

GE sold the operation for $35 million in September, 1983, to Universal Communications, which was organized by the investment firm of Forstmann Little & Co.

WRGB President and General Manager James Delmonico, who is among the current owners, said no changes in top management or in the 100-person staff at the station are expected immediately. Maloney said Freedom Newspapers in past acquisitions had usually kept existing management in place.

“Broadcast properties have been red hot,” said Delmonico, and have been selling at “out-of-this-world prices.”

“WRGB makes a lot of money; 1985 will be the best year in its history,” he said, “and 1984 was the second best. . . . It’s very, very successful.”

Freedom owns television stations WLNE, New Bedford, Mass.; KTVL, Medford, Ore.; WTVC, Chattanooga, Tenn., and KFDM, Beaumont, Tex.