I heard the rumor that El Rey Might soon come to the Seattle air-waves.
What do you know?

Well, there's KMCQ...they've been testing their TX recently. Perhaps Bustos is buying the station.

looks like that move happened quite awhile ago actually....

http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2008/09/15/story13.html?jst=pn_pn _lk

Cited article is dated yesterday/Friday, discussing KKMO's change to El Rey earlier this month. Since month is only 12 days old...it wouldn't be "quite a while ago" in my book.

First of all, didn't they sell the station and are waiting for the sale to finalize? Secondly Bustos won't buy another FM in Seattle. He has spent too much in Seattle as it is for what he is generating.

I am a bit confused here: the article says that the Seattle "El Rey" station is AM and that it is owned by Salem Communications. How did Bustos enter the picture? One of the previous discussions about El Rey on this board had stated that Salem had sub-contracted Univision to develop the "El Rey" format. The Bustos brand name for their Regional Mexican format is "La Grande."

This is from the Seattle P-I newspaper:

On Radio: KKMO sale could mean loss of Spanish-language outlet
By BILL VIRGIN
P-I REPORTER

The winter quarter ratings book from The Arbitron Co. was a good one for Spanish-language radio in the Seattle-Tacoma market. Three such stations placed in the top 31 among all listeners.

Which adds an element of curiosity to Salem Communications Inc.'s recent decision to sell KKMO-AM/1360, marketed as Radio Sol.

According to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission, Salem has agreed to sell KKMO, one of five AM stations it owns in this market, to Intelli LLC of San Jose, Calif., for $3.69 million.

Intelli's owner, Tron Do, currently buys six hours of programming a day on a station in San Jose owned by Multicultural Programming Radio (which owns KXPA-AM/1540 in Seattle).

Neither Tron Do nor his attorney was available for comment on what the station's format might be after the sale.

Amador Bustos, whose Sacramento, Calif.-based company owns AM and FM Spanish-language stations in the Seattle market, says the San Jose station is almost entirely Vietnamese and Asian programming, and "probably that's the eventual format of (KKMO)." Though Bustos says that's an "educated guess," the record of the buyers would suggest "they don't have the experience or inclination" to do Spanish-language broadcasting.

Neither, it would appear, does Salem. While the Camarillo, Calif.-based company declined comment, the company's emphasis in formats is conservative talk and religious programming. That fits the profile of three of its remaining AM stations in Seattle -- conservative-talk KKOL-AM/1300 and religious talk and instruction stations KGNW-AM/820 and KLFE- AM/1590. The other Salem station in the Seattle market is KDOW-AM/1680, which, like KKMO, is Spanish language, but Salem hasn't said what it plans to do with it.

Less competition in that segment would be good news for Bustos' properties -- KDDS-FM/ 99.3 and KTBK-AM/1210 -- especially given the economic climate and its effect on advertising purchases.

Bustos says Spanish-language radio is holding up better than the industry generally. "We are clearly seeing a slowdown," he says, but Spanish-language radio is still able to produce single-digit percentage increases, while many general-audience outlets are seeing declines.

Major reasons for that, he says, are growth in the Latino/Hispanic market and advertisers getting more comfortable with buying on Spanish-language outlets, especially when Arbitron ratings demonstrate listenership (KDDS, KKMO and KTBK all had enough of an audience to show up in Arbitron's rankings). "We're educating advertisers and bringing them around," he says. "Advertisers are going to want to market to people who are consuming. Demographics is an inescapable fact."


P-I reporter Bill Virgin can be reached at 206-448-8319 or billvirgin@seattlepi.com.