Fuse Media Taken Over in Management Buyout After Bankruptcy

Fuse Media has been taken over in a management buyout following its 2019 bankruptcy reorganization. The company operates the Latinx-focused Fuse cable channel and FM music outlet. Fuse Media has been owned by a group of private equity firms and hedge funds since it completed its Chapter 11 filing.

Fuse Media has been taken over in a management buyout following its 2019 bankruptcy reorganization.

The company operates the Latinx-focused Fuse cable channel and FM music outlet. Fuse Media has been owned by a group of private equity firms and hedge funds since it completed its Chapter 11 filing.

Fuse Media CEO Miguel Roggero, who has been with Fuse and its predecessors since 2006, will lead the current team that includes Judi Lopez, head of content distribution, Fernando Romero, head of ad sales, programming chief Marc Leonard, marketing head Mark McIntire and digital head Patrick Courtney.

Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Roggero noted the rarity of a Latinx-led management team taking over a national media outlet.

“At a time when millions of Americans of all races and ethnicities are calling for more representation and servicing of underserved communities, the Fuse Media management team is taking ownership of its collective destiny. Literally,” Roggero said. “Only through ownership can Latino and other minorities reach our true potential. Ownership matters, especially in media, which must do a better job of realistically reflecting communities of color. Ownership means control and the best way to determine one’s fate. And today, we are taking our destinies, and those of our community, into our own hands.”

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Fuse Media at present is the result of the 2014 acquisition of music-focused Fuse from MSG by NuvoTV, an indie cabler that counted Jennifer Lopez among its investors. NuvoTV was founded in early 2004 as cable channel SiTV by producer Jeff Valdez, who now heads New Cadence Productions.

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Fuse has struggled in recent years and lost cable distribution amid the larger changes in the pay-TV landscape. The primary cable channel still has distribution via DirecTV, Dish, Charter Communications and on virtual MVPDs DirecTV Stream (previously AT&T Now) and Sling TV.

Roggero has assembled a new board for the privately held company that includes Tony Nieves, co-founder and president of Latinx marketing firm Marca Miami and former Univision executive Emeli Colletta.

“Brand builders should look at this development with great interest,” Nieves said. “The Latino community is an enormous factor in the economic, social and political fabric of America and Fuse Media is a powerful way of engaging this influential audience.”

(Pictured: Fuse series “Like, Share, Dimelo”)

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