KTWV-FM Among Stations Westinghouse Will Purchase

Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. said Thursday that it agreed to acquire 10 radio stations from Metropolitan Broadcasting Corp. and Legacy Broadcasting Inc., creating the nation’s largest non-network-owned radio station group.

“With this one agreement, the company that inaugurated radio broadcasting in America in 1920 will dramatically increase its base of operations, which will insure that Westinghouse will remain the first name in radio on into the next century,” said Westinghouse’s Group W Radio Chairman Richard H. Harris.

Terms of the agreement were not announced, but the Dow Jones News Service reported that the deal was “believed to be worth between $350 million and $375 million.”

Not in San Francisco

The 10 Metropolitan-Legacy radio stations include FM stations in Los Angeles (KTWV), New York (WNEW), Philadelphia (WMMR) and Detroit (WLLZ), and AM-FM stations in Washington (WCPT-AM/WCXR-FM), Houston (KILT-AM/FM) and Minneapolis (KDWB-AM/FM).

Westinghouse Broadcasting, a unit of Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Corp., already owns 14 radio stations across the country, including all-news KFWB-AM in Los Angeles and WINS-AM in New York, adult contemporary KQZY-FM in Dallas/Ft. Worth and easy listening KJQY-FM in San Diego.

Adding the Washington and Detroit markets to its operations would provide Group W with stations in nine of the nation’s top 10 markets, excluding only San Francisco.

In addition, it said its coverage of the United States would increase to about 35% from 29%.

Closing of the deal is subject to various conditions, including repayment of all public and private debt of Legacy and Metropolitan at a price not to exceed $135 million and approval by both companies’ boards as well as the Federal Communications Commission.