Keeping it in the black: Cathy Hughes' Radio One buys its seventh station.

The largest radio transaction between two minority-owned companies recently took place in Washington.

Radio One Inc., chaired by popular radio talk show host Cathy Hughes, paid $34 million for WKYS-FM, a 50,000-watt, urban contemporary station. WKYS was owned by Albimar Communications Inc., whose principal partners include U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and Jim Kelly, husband of former D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly. Albimar will get a tax break for selling to a minority-owned company.

"It's exciting that we could step up to the plate and keep this radio station in black ownership," Hughes says.

The deal will make Radio One, which already owns six stations in Washington and Baltimore, a regional powerhouse. Last year, Radio One reported $17.6 million in revenues.

The willingness to take risks might best explain why Hughes has prospered in the competitive and cyclical radio industry. In fact, she seems to dare it to defy her determination to succeed. Before striking out on her own, Hughes had a thriving career as general manager of WHUR-FM, a radio station owned and operated by Howard University. While there, she increased advertising revenues from $300,000 to $3.5 million, and created the popular "Quiet Storm" format now heard on stations nationwide.

Hughes bought her first station, WOL-AM in Washington, in 1980. Although she got a price break from the FCC because it was a distress sale, it was several years before the station made a profit. It was a stand-alone station, and without an FM brother, Hughes could not offer the same competitive advertising rates as other companies.

"We are the first black corporation in America to attempt all-talk, news and information," Hughes says. Unfortunately, advertisers were not buying it fast enough and the bank told her she was on her own if she did not abandon the new format. In the end, Hughes and her format were successful, but that success did not come easy.

In addition to the all-talk, news and information WOL, Hughes owns five other stations, including four in Baltimore. Syndicated Communications Corp. (Syncom), a Silver Spring, Md.-based venture capital firm, has been Radio One's lead investor in acquiring the stations. "We continued to support her and be patient. She did the tough things that were necessary to make it win for her and us," says Terry Jones, president of Syncom.

Now Hughes has positioned herself to take another risk on the stand-alone WKYS, whose market share has dropped significantly over the last few years. Hughes and her son, Alfred Liggins, who serves as Radio One's president and general manager, are confident they'll turn things around at WKYS.

"I love the fact that I own six and soon seven stations, but that's not what really pleases me," Hughes says. "What pleases me is that I have 210 broadcasters working for me; at least 195 are African-American. What turns me on most about this business is fulfilling my dream to provide lucrative employment opportunities for other blacks in an industry where there are so few opportunities."