Radio One To Buy Larger Stake In TV One

Story by TRI
written by Tom Taylor

Lanham-based urban radio giant Radio One, showing new confidence, will buy out DirecTV and prep for a stock buyback. That gives Radio One a majority ownership interest - just barely - in its cable channel, and that allows it to account for the TV One venture with its other operations on the consolidated balance sheet. When the DirecTV deal's done, Radio One will have a 50.8% interest in TV One. In the beginning, CEO Alfred Liggins had to promise pieces of TV One to distribution gatekeepers like DirecTV and Comcast to gain carriage, and now he's in a position to at least buy out DirecTV.

As for the stock buyback, the board authorizes a fairly loose one, good for up to $15 million over the next two years, for either the Class A or Class D stocks. At current trading levels, a 15% buyback would be something like 12% of the stock float.....