Jackson’s WRBJ-TV Channel 34 is set to get a new owner, a global broadcaster of religious programming.
Trinity Christian Center, doing business as Trinity Broadcasting Network, commonly known as TBN, has bought the CW affiliate, on Channel 8 on Comcast cable, according to an announcement Monday by Media Venture Partners LLC, a San Francisco firm that represented the station’s current owner, Roberts Broadcasting, in the transaction.
Very few details were available Monday. Terms of the deal were not announced. It’s not clear when the station’s programming lineup might change. WRBJ’s website on Monday evening indicated CW programming will air as scheduled on the station through at least this weekend.
The station’s management could not be reached for comment. A message for Trinity president and co-founder Paul Crouch was not immediately returned.
“We are pleased to again work with Trinity Broadcasting Network. We have known the outstanding leadership of Trinity President Paul Crouch for over two decades. We know that the greater Jackson, Mississippi, region will welcome the Trinity programming,” Roberts Broadcasting President Steve Roberts said in the Media Venture news release.
Neither Roberts nor Media Venture Partners could be reached for further comment.
Roberts Broadcasting is owned by Steve Roberts and his brother, Mike. The St. Louis-based businessmen also own the Roberts Walthall Hotel, formerly the Edison Walthall, in Jackson.
The brothers’ financial empire has taken a hard hit during the recession, and Roberts Broadcasting filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2011 for WRBJ and TV stations it owns in St. Louis, Evansville, Ind., and Columbia, S.C., although it’s not clear what role, if any, those financial woes played in Roberts Broadcasting selling the Jackson TV station.
The Roberts Walthall, closed for almost two years because of water damage and the brothers’ financial troubles, was part of a separate Chapter 11 proceeding that was dismissed last summer. The hotel is now in receivership.
WRBJ debuted in early 2006 carrying UPN programming. It became a CW affiliate that September.
