Former BET, PBS and NPR/Public Radio International host Tavis Smiley’s Smiley Radio Properties has agreed to purchase Brokered Spanish 1580 KBLA Santa Monica/Los Angeles from Multicultural Radio Broadcasting for $7.15 million.
Smiley, who was also a longtime contributor to the Tom Joyner Morning Show, hosted a daily show for NPR in 2004/05 before making it a weekly distributed by Public Radio International until 2018. He was also a late night host for BET and PBS during his career, but has been off the air since he was fired by PBS and PRI for sexual misconduct allegations. He would later lose a lawsuit filed by PBS for violating the morals clause in his contract.
KBLA operates with a directional 50kW from a tower it shares with Multicultural’s 1230 KYPA Los Angeles and Immaculate Heart Media’s 930 KHJ. As part of the deal, Smiley will pay $10,000 per month to lease the KBLA equipment with a 3% annual increase. The sale also includes a non-compete barring Multicultural or any of its members from operating or assisting with a competing business a station with “an Urban programming format” in Los Angeles for eight years.
Smiley intends to launch not an “Urban programming format”, but a Liberal Talk format on the station positioned as “Unapologetically Progressive“.
edwardford 
I’m imagining he did not make an offer to Cumulus for KABC. Most of KBLA’s directional signal goes out into the Pacific Ocean, great for freighters coming in to dock at Long Beach or Port of Los Angeles. Also at the high end of the dial at 1580.
Even if it is a Los Angeles signal, Mr. Smiley overpaid for KBLA. It hasn’t had any kind of ratings numbers for years.