Two years after acquiring their first broadcast television station in the Los Angeles market, the Church of Scientology is looking to bring their nascent TV business to the East Coast.
Last week, the group filed paperwork with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to acquire the broadcast license of WFTT (Channel 62) from Entravision Communications. The license transfer is part of a broader $30 million deal that includes the purchase of assets associated with the stations, documents reviewed by The Desk showed.
The companies signed a purchase agreement earlier this month, the filings showed. WFTT serves the Tampa-St. Petersburg market, which includes the city of Clearwater, where the international headquarters of the Church of Scientology is located.
The deal comes after the Church of Scientology made a similar $30 million deal to acquire KWHY (Channel 22) in Los Angeles. Sunset Boulevard Broadcasting, the church’s media broadcast organization, operates the station, now called KSCN-TV, with programming from the Scientology Network. The church was founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in Los Angeles, but moved its business headquarters to Florida in the mid-1970s.
Kalil & Company, one of the largest brokers of broadcast-related deals, helped facilitate the sale of WFTT from Entravision to the Church of Scientology.
The Scientology Network is carried nationally on DIRECTV.
