CBS ACQUIRES TELEVISION AND RADIO STATIONS FROM MIDWEST COMMUNICATIONS

CBS ACQUIRES TELEVISION AND RADIO STATIONS FROM MIDWEST COMMUNICATIONS 

    NEW YORK, Feb. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- CBS (NYSE: CBS) closed today its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Midwest Communications, Inc., including the following properties: WCCO-TV, WCCO-AM and WLTE-FM, all located in Minneapolis; WFRV-TV, located in Green Bay, Wis.; and Midwest Sports Channel, a regional sports cable channel.
    CBS acquired these properties from Midwest for $178.6 million, which included the assumption and immediate pay-down by CBS of $141.9 million of Midwest's debt obligations and other liabilities.  CBS paid the remaining balance of $36.7 million of the total purchase price to Midwest shareholders through the issuance of CBS common stock, which was valued at an exchange price of $160 per share.  When announced last July, the transaction was valued at approximately $200 million. Pursuant to the agreement between Midwest and CBS, Midwest opted to retain certain assets, cash and accounts receivable, rather than transfer these to CBS, which reduced the total transaction price.
    WCCO-TV, affiliated with the CBS Television Network since 1952, ranks number one from sign-on to sign-off in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market.  WFRV-TV in Green Bay is currently an ABC affiliate and will begin to air CBS Television Network programming later this year. Minneapolis-St. Paul and Green Bay-Appleton are the nation's 13th and 67th largest television markets, respectively, as estimated by Arbitron. With these two acquisitions, the CBS Television Stations Division operates seven CBS-owned television stations that reach 22.2 percent of the national television audience.  CBS also owns television stations in New York (WCBS-TV), Los Angeles (KCBS-TV), Chicago (WBBM-TV), Philadelphia (WCAU-TV) and Miami (WCIX-TV).
    WCCO-AM is the top-rated radio station, specializing in news-sports- talk, in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market.  WLTE-FM broadcasts the contemporary "lite" format and ranks fourth of the 19 radio stations operating in the market.  With these two newly acquired radio properties, CBS owns eight AM and 13 FM radio stations.  CBS has announced that, in compliance with the terms of a waiver received from the FCC, it will divest itself of KLOU(FM) in St. Louis in order to comply with the 12-station FM ownership limit of the FCC.
    The call letters of WCCO have been associated with CBS for more than 60 years.  WCCO-AM was one of the original CBS-owned radio stations, operated by CBS from 1931 to 1952, and has been steadily affiliated with the CBS Radio Networks.  In addition, CBS owned a 47 percent non-voting interest in WCCO-AM and WCCO-TV from 1952 to 1954.
    -0-            2/5/92
    /CONTACT:  Keith Fawcett of CBS, 212-975-6824/
    (CBS) CO:  CBS Inc.; Midwest Communications Inc. ST:  New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin IN:  ENT SU:  TNM

CK-OS -- NY049 -- 7224 02/05/92 13:14 EST