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The departure of two other conservative anchors from Radio Mambí has materialized. The move comes after the acquisition last month by Latino Media Network, a media startup partially financed by Lakestar Finance (an entity affiliated with Soros Fund Management) and led by well-known personalities linked to the Democratic Party.
They are hosts Dania Alexandrino and Nelson Rubio, who, according to a source at Radio Mambí, wanted to announce their departure from the air during their last program, but the station’s management did not allow them to do so.
Rubio, who has won three Emmy Awards, informed on Tuesday the board of directors of TelevisaUnivision, the consortium that still manages the station, that he would leave the station immediately due to the possible change of ownership. Alexandrino resigned on Monday.
However, the decision was made last week. The idea was for Rubio to announce his resignation on the air and then hold a press conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami at 11:00 am that was called by Americano Media, a conservative news organization.
This is the second and third resignation from the station in less than fifteen days, after Lourdes Ubieta, who had the afternoon prime time slot on Radio Mambí, resigned at the beginning of the month after rejecting a $120,000 bonus under a confidentiality agreement.
The purchase of Radio Mambí and 17 other Hispanic radio stations by Latino Media Network from the TelevisaUnivision consortium made national news and generated much controversy after the Cuban-American community in Florida and Republican congressmen warned that the Soros-financed group was allegedly seeking to censor conservative media uncomfortable for the Democratic Party, such as the case of Mambí, a historically conservative station.
According to an inside source at TelevisaUnivision — who knew the details of the deal but preferred to remain anonymous because of potential persecution — Latino Media Network bought the 18 Hispanic radio stations from the consortium after Salem Media Group bid some $46,000,000. LMN’s bid was much higher: $60,000,000,000, which took the stations.
However, the operation generated a lot of fuzz due to the fact that the board of directors of Latino Media Network and its main advisors are linked to both the DNC and progressive organizations, causing an internal crisis within TelevisaUnivision after the main presenters of Radio Mambí — of a conservative tendency — threatened to leave the station.
According to the source, in order to alleviate the internal crisis, TelevisaUnivision, in collaboration with Latino Media Network, offered retention bonuses to the conservative anchors to stay until the management transition was completed. However, they did not accept. “They don’t want money tied to Soros or from people close to the Democratic Party,” the source said.
Jorge Bonilla, director of Media Research Center Latino, published information on his Twitter account that coincides with what the internal TelevisaUnivision source said.
The concern of TelevisaUnivision and Latino Media Network strengthens, as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has not yet approved the operation of the 18 stations distributed throughout the country and the noise could further delay the final decision of the government agency.
The source explained that the intention of TelevisaUnivision and Latino Media Network was to keep the conservative anchors to try to show an image of journalistic neutrality, keeping them within the staff of Mambí until the operation was carried out and a clean operational transition was made.
The departure of the anchors is a big problem for TelevisaUnivision and Latino Media Network, as the departure of these journalists will generate important losses in terms of advertising for the station since most of the sponsors of these programs could potentially leave with them to their next place of work.
In fact, according to the source, already with the departure of Ubieta, who is now working for Americano Media, Mambí is losing “hundreds of thousands of dollars due to the departure of sponsors. The same could happen with the resignations of Dania Alexandrino and Nelson Rubio.”
Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.
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