The Spanish group Prisa sold Radio Continental and its two FMs to businessman Carlos Rosales, who bought Garbarino last June. Treasurer of the San Lorenzo club, Rosales is the owner of the Prof insurance group, a hotel in Misiones and the Schiaffino Bistró restaurant.
Rosales’ plan is to maintain the same programming in the AM, but drivers who were on the Metro would go to one of its FM, in a co-production with the Kwarzo group, by Martín Kweller.
The transaction was disclosed through a statement, in which Rosales reported that “the Santamartah Group owned by the businessman Carlos Rosales became the new owner of the stations AM 590 Radio Continental, Los 40 Argentina FM 105.5, FM 104.3 and the digital platforms of each of them, after this Thursday, January 14, the transfer of the shares by Grupo Prisa to Carlos Rosales was signed. ”
Rosales would make adjustments to the radio programming, although maintaining the central scheme, with Fernando Bravo, Beto Casella, Diego Schurman, Roberto Moldavsky, Dominique Metzger and Daniel López in the main radio segments. The case of Mariano Closs is different, since he decided to leave the radio, for a better economic proposal from ESPN. “The idea is to continue with sports programming at that time, but we are still seeing how we are going to replace it,” they told Clarion sources near Rosales.
And they added that a co-production agreement was signed with Ktz, by Martín Kweller, so that a good part of the programming that FM Metro had goes to FM where Continental’s AM was broadcast. The plan of the new owners is to have Andy Kusnetzoff, Matías Martin, Sebastián Wainraich and María O’Donnell, among others. But that will depend on the agreements that Ktz signs with those drivers.
“The presidency of Santamartah Medios will be headed by Gabriel Enriquez, with extensive experience in the media system, with political training and close ties with the main executives in the world of communication. On the other hand, Gonzalo Arias, media consultant and owner of a major production company, he will be the CEO of the company, “the new owners released in a statement.
Carlos Rosales highlighted “the enormous challenge involved in putting radio stations back in the first places of audience preference. Continental is a radio with more than 50 years of history with an important human capital that has known how to lead the radio spectrum for a long time and that has the objective of making listeners fall in love again “, concluded Rosales, in the press release.
Prisa is one of the largest multimedia groups in Spain and goes through a crisis due to its large debt, that in recent years has forced him to put several companies up for sale. It continues to control the daily El País and Cadena Ser, in Spain, in addition to 1,200 radio stations throughout the region. In Argentina, it had a presence in the media since 2004, when they bought Radio Continental.
Industry sources agree that Prisa needed to abandon its radios in Argentina due to the crisis in Spain and the economic crisis here. Radio Continental is sixth in audience, according to Kantar Ibope, with 5% participation, behind Miter, La Red, Radio 10, AM750 and Rivadavia.
Grupo Prisa owned Radio Continental, since November 2004, when bought it from the Telefónica de España Group, with FM 105.5 (ex FM Hit). In recent years, it had made an alliance with Grupo Albavisión, owned by the Mexican businessman Remigio González González, which expired at the end of 2019.
In early 2020, Prisa Radio moved from the historic downtown Buenos Aires building to the Palermo neighborhood, where moved the stations, with new equipment to boost the broadcasts, which had an increase in audience, but “did not achieve the expected objectives, in terms of economic income, due to the economic crisis and the pandemic,” said industry sources, to justify Prisa’s departure from the media of communication of Argentina.
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