NBC acquires 30 Telemundo stations and 12 NBC affiliates

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NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations, a division of NBCUniversal, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of a group of full power, Class A and low power television stations serving the Sacramento and Salt Lake City markets from Serestar Communications.

In addition, the groups announced that the joint sales and time brokerage agreement pursuant to which Serestar has operated KNSO, the Telemundo-owned station in the Fresno market and KEJT-CD, the Class A station in Salt Lake City, will be terminated.

The stations will be operated by NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations as part of the Telemundo Station Group.

The transaction was completed on March 5, 2019. With this acquisition, the NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations Division will include 30 Telemundo stations and 12 NBC stations serving audiences in 30 markets in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

“The Telemundo stations have redefined the way that local Spanish-language audiences receive their local news. With each new team we’ve welcomed to our group, we have enhanced the stations’ news programming, hired local journalists to support the boost in news, and pioneered our industry’s first-ever Spanish-language station apps that feature the marketplace’s only Spanish-language weather alerts. We are proud to welcome the stations to NBCUniversal and our owned stations family,” said Valari Staab, president, NBCUniversal Owned Television Station in a statement.

“NBCUniversal/Telemundo has been a terrific company for Serestar to have been affiliated with. I’m confident that the Telemundo Station Group leadership team will do a great job of continuing to serve the community and of growing the success of these stations that the Serestar dedicated team has managed so successfully over the past five years,” said Philip Wilkinson, President/CEO, Serestar Communications.

“Our Telemundo stations have become a powerful source for hyper-local, live news, weather, consumer, investigative, political, and community information in all of our markets. Working together with our sister NBC stations to serve all audiences, including bilingual viewers, we look forward to continuing to super-serve Hispanics in Salt Lake City, Sacramento, and Fresno with the outstanding journalism that our Telemundo stations deliver day in and day out,” added Manuel Martinez, President, Telemundo Station Group.

In December 2018, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations entered into an agreement with Serestar to acquire its Telemundo-affiliated television stations in Salt Lake City and Sacramento. As part of the transaction, the agreements pursuant to which Serestar provided day-to-day operational services to KEJT-CD, the Telemundo owned station in Salt Lake City, and KNSO, the Telemundo owned station in Fresno, were terminated. The FCC-approved transaction includes assignment of the following licenses in the Sacramento market: KMUM-CD (Class A) (Sacramento, CA), KCSO-LD (Low Power) (Sacramento, CA), and KMMW-LD (Low Power) (Stockton, CA). The transaction also includes the following licenses in the Salt Lake City market: full power KTMW (Salt Lake City, UT), KULX-CD (Class A) (Ogden, UT), K17II-LD (Low Power)(Logan, UT), and KULU-LD (Low Power) (Park City, UT).

The NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations division is the only local TV station group in the country that features bilingual newsrooms serving English and Spanish-speaking audiences in 12 markets. Nineteen Telemundo owned stations serve Spanish-speaking audiences in the country’s top 20 Hispanic TV markets. Fueled by NBCUniversal’s investment, the NBC and Telemundo stations have transformed the way local news is delivered to English, Spanish and bilingual audiences by expanding the stations’ local news programming, launching cutting edge digital and mobile platforms for all stations featuring English/Spanish-language weather alerts, enhancing their English and Spanish-language Investigative Teams, launching new NBC Responds/Telemundo Responde consumer units and putting nearly $30 million dollars back in consumers’ pockets, and changing the way that weather forecasts and current weather conditions are presented to all audiences with award-winning, state-of-the-art weather technology. NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations owns the largest privately owned network of weather radars in the country, and the fourth largest in the U.S. In 2018 in Philadelphia, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations unveiled its eighth state-of-the-art news facility – the most technologically advanced local news center in the country for its use of an all IP-based network infrastructure. Now, in 2019, two modern news facilities are set to open: KBLR Telemundo in Las Vegas, and the NBCUniversal Boston Media Center for WBTS NBC, WNEU Telemundo, necn and NBC Sports Boston in Needham, MA.