NBCUniversal is taking over affiliation rights for the Telemundo station in the D.C. market and will be launching its own Telemundo-owned station in December, according to a memo obtained by the Washington Business Journal.
ZGS Communications, an Arlington company that owns the largest group of independent Telemundo affiliations, gave up its spectrum for the Washington market earlier this year in an auction, which gave NBCUniversal the ability to take back the Telemundo affiliation, according to a spokesperson who confirmed the new station.
NBC and ZGS have an affiliation agreement, and the spectrum sale triggered a clause that allows NBC to fold the Telemundo affiliation back into the company.
Jackie Bradford, president and general manager of NBC4/WRC, the Washington-area station owned by NBC, announced the move in a Sept. 6 memo to staff, saying the "project will expand NBC Washington news staff with a new team of Spanish-speaking and bilingual journalists to launch the new station. Both news teams will serve Spanish- and English-speaking viewers in the greater Washington, D.C. region.”
The new station will operate from the larger media company’s Nebraska Avenue NW studios, Bradford said in the memo. WRC-TV is, in turn, owned by NBCUniversal.
"Our relationships in the D.C. community run deep, and adding resources to serve our Spanish-speaking viewers will make us all stronger," Bradford said in the memo.
ZGS still owns stations in El Paso, Texas; Fort Myers, Florida; Hartford, Connecticut; Orlando and other locations.
Nicole Quiroga, former general manager of Telemundo Washington, D.C., had already departed in June to serve as the Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce's new president and CEO.
