Bass Group Affiliate Buys TV Station in Sacramento

Anchor Media has purchased Sacramento television station KOVR for $162 million in an unsolicited bid, becoming the station’s fourth owner this decade, station officials said.

KOVR, an ABC affiliate, is the largest station acquired by Anchor Media, which is based in St. Petersburg, Fla., and owns television and radio stations in four other states.

Anchor Media purchased KOVR from Narragansett Capital Inc., which bought the station in 1986 for $104 million.

“Our basic attraction (to KOVR) is the fact that it is located in the state capital,’ said Allen Henry, company chairman and chief executive. “We like state capitals. It’s a part of our regional business plan.”

The media company has another state capital-based television station, WSYX in Columbus, Ohio. It also owns television and radio stations in Asheville, N.C.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Dallas, and Las Vegas.

Anchor Media is an affiliate of the Robert M. Bass Group Inc., which has made two other multimillion-dollar investments in the Sacramento Valley in the past five months.

In June, Texas billionaire Robert M. Bass and his partners bought nearly 2,000 acres in Roseville for residential, commercial, business and professional development.

In September, Bass agreed to buy Stockton-based American Savings & Loan Assn., the nation’s largest insolvent thrift. That deal calls for Bass to invest $550 million to shore up the ailing institution, and for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which oversees the thrift agency, to inject $2 billion into American Savings over the next 10 years.

Henry, who met with KOVR’s 159 employees Monday, said there will be no changes at the station before the sale wins approval from the Federal Communications Commission, expected in late January.

KOVR went on the air in September, 1954.