Soros Is Financial Backer To Acquire 18 Radio Stations

A George Soros-backed group of predominantly Hispanic investors has purchased 18 Spanish-language radio stations in 10 cities for $60 million, reports The Washington Examiner.

The Latino Media Network is led by Obama administration official Stephanie Valencia and received financing from Lakestar Finance LLC, an investment firm associated with liberal billionaire George Soros. The acquisition of 18 radio stations owned by TelevisaUnivision was announced last week.

Soros is a supporter of progressive sand liberal political causes.

"We believe in the power and reach of radio and it remains a main source of media for a significant number of our community,” Jess Morales Rocketto, a veteran of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns, said in a statement. “We hope to create relevant content for radio and other audio platforms with content that our community can trust and rely on.”

The 18 stations in the deal are a combined set of AM and FM stations in the largest US markets, and 8 of the top 10 Latino markets, reaching 33% of U.S. Latinos.  The stations included are:

• New York - WADO-AM 1280
• Los Angeles - KTNQ-AM 1020
• Chicago - WRTO-AM 1200
• Dallas  - KFLC-AM 1270; KFZO-FM 99.1
• Houston - KLAT-AM 1010
• Miami - WAQI-AM 710; WQBA-AM 1140
• Fresno - KOND-FM 107.5; KRDA-FM 92.1; KLLE-FM 107.9
• Las Vegas - KLSQ-AM 870; KISF-FM 103.5; KRGT-FM 99.3
• San Antonio - KXTN-AM 1350
• McAllen - KGBT-AM 1530; KGBT-FM 98.5; KBTQ-FM 96.1

Transition of the stations will happen following FCC approval and a one year transition agreement between TelevisaUnivision and Latino Media Network, which is expected to conclude in Q4 of 2023.

One of the stations included in the deal is Radio Mambi, a conservative talk radio station in Miami, Florida, that Democrats have long accused of spreading “ misinformation ” in the Hispanic community.

George Soros

“In the 2020 election, we saw this — really a compelling rightward shift among the Latino electorate and in South Florida,” Huffington Post reporter Lautaro Grinspan recently told NPR. “And it lends credence to the notion that Spanish-language misinformation is playing a role in shaping folks' political perceptions.”

But is “misinformation” really to blame for the recent rightward drift of Hispanics? Or are more and more Hispanics realizing that the Democratic Party simply doesn’t share their values.

“Everybody was a liberal Democrat — in my neighborhood, in the Bronx, in the local government,” Florida Republican Erik Ortiz recently told the New York Times . “The welfare state was bad for our people — the state became the father in the black and brown household and that was a bad, bad mistake.”

The Washington Examiner states Ortiz is right: The social safety net designed by the Democratic Party punishes marriage and replaces fathers with checks and social workers. And President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda would only make those marriage penalties worse .

No wonder recent polling shows the Republican Party now even with the Democrats among Hispanic voters.