The Korea Times Los Angeles Inc. is joining forces with an investment firm to create a company aimed at consolidating the fragmented Asian media market in the U.S.
Leonard Green & Partners of Los Angeles is acquiring a 50 percent stake in the family-owned The Korea Times, which publishes Korean-language papers in 10 major U.S. cities and four international markets. The two companies will then buy 100 percent of International Media Group Inc, a Los Angeles company that owns KSCI-TV in Long Beach and KIKU-TV in Hawaii.
The properties will be folded into a new company to be called Asian Media Group Inc. Green will invest a total of $165 million, which is the purchase price of International Media Group.
Jae Min Chang, chairman and chief executive of The Korea Times Los Angeles, will become head of the new company.
“We think Chang and his team are great managers,” said Peter Nolan, a partner at Leonard Green. “We think this is a fairly large and fragmented market and if we can bring it all together as a unified business, it can be a powerful force for targeted media for advertisers.”
Chang said the new company will seek to buy radio and television stations around the country, with the most likely in the New York market. Creating a network of stations will allow the company to attract national advertisers, especially when soon-to-be-released U.S. Census figures document the growth of the Asian American population, Chang said.
“This is a dynamic and significant community,” Chang said. “Asian Americans are always left out. With the creation of the group, I think we can voice ourselves economically and, further down the road, politically.”
Korea Times publishes in most major markets, including New York, Washington, Chicago and Atlanta. Los Angeles holds the largest concentration of Asian immigrants in the country.
The two television stations broadcast programs in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and several other Asian languages. Chang said the strategy going forward will be to expand the company’s holdings to include broadcasters that appeal to the full spectrum of Asians.
“Asians are a large, silent minority in the U.S.,” Nolan said. “We’ve seen over the past 10 years the growth in the Hispanic community — a legitimization of the Hispanic market for advertisers. We see an opportunity for the Korean community, as well.”