Bob Behar, president and CEO of Hero Broadcasting
Bob Behar, president and CEO of Hero Broadcasting, explained that what was sold for US$10 millions to Grupo Meruelo was the license of the Los Angeles station KBEH-63, since the spectrum had been sold to the government in the FCC bid.
“The incentives bid carried out by the FCC there were two elements: One was the bid of the TV broadcasting spectrum and the second was the license to operate the signal. The spectrum was sold to the government and the license was sold to Grupo Meruelo” commented Behar.
He mentioned that the license covers the must carry and broadcast rights. “The must carry grants Meruelo the right to be distributed on all pay TV systems that serve Los Angeles” he expressed.
“The Hero programming will still be on this station for six months while the transaction is concluded. All the programs that are watched on channel 63 will continue to be available on the same frequency in Los Angeles. TV will not be affected at all. They will only have to carry out a scan on their TV sets when we notify in a public stamen that we are handing over the station to Meruelo,” explained Behar.
After this sale to Hero they would only have the Phoenix TV station -KMOH-TV- that is also for sale.
Behar has plans to create another company in the future to be service providers of the TV stations that convert to the new television standard -ATSC 3.0- that will come out at the end of 2018. “This is going to be a radical change, compared to what exists today and what is coming is very interesting,” he ended.
