This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 10, 2011 - Less than two weeks after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered St. Louis-based Roberts Broadcasting to pay $1.4 million to Warner Brothers Television, the company's four television stations have filed for a Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy proceedings were filed Friday, Oct. 7, listing law firm Armstrong Teasdale and utility Ameren UE among the company's creditors. Roberts Broadcasting consists of four TV stations: WRBU Channel 46 in St. Louis, WZRB in Columbia, S.C., WRBJ in Jackson, Miss., and WAZE in Evansville, Ind.
In a written statement, Steve Roberts blamed the dissolution of the UPN network by CBS Corp. for the stations' woes. According to Roberts, the four stations were meant to be UPN affiliates.
"To our surprise, UPN folded shortly after these stations started broadcasting, which threw off all of our business plans," Roberts said.
The Sept. 26 Warner Brothers ruling was the second of a one-two punch to the broadcast arm of brothers Steve and Mike Roberts' troubled companies. Just last March, Roberts Broadcasting was ordered to pay CBS Corp. $1.04 million after CBS subsidiaries filed charges that the company did not pay for syndicated programming, the same allegations lodged by Warner Brothers.
Specific shows in the Warner Brothers case include "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," "Living Single" and "The Jamie Foxx Show."
The Roberts Cos. is no stranger to legal disputes. Since 2008, the Roberts brothers' holdings have been plaintiff or defendant in 42 St. Louis city court filings, regarding a range of entities from interior design companies to the city's department of public safety.
The Roberts Cos.'s real estate holdings include Roberts Lofts, Roberts Tower and Roberts Isle and Resort, the largest African-American-owned development in the Bahamas. The privately owned firm also has an aviation company, and a Comfort Inn formerly known as Hotel Indigo along with the four TV stations.
The company was founded in the 1980s. By 2008, it had grown to include 72 businesses, stretching from Nassau to South Carolina to Denver and worth about $750 million.
The brothers, who attended St. Louis Public Schools, earned law degrees and served on the St. Louis Board of Aldermen while launching their businesses, were seen as the ultimate African-American success story. Their offices on Kingshighway at Martin Luther King Drive stand a few blocks from their childhood home.
One of the first signs that the company was struggling came when CBS Corp. filed its suit in April 2010. That same year, Roberts Cos. sold its communications tower business for $88.5 million.
Last month, three downtown St. Louis buildings owned by the Roberts Brothers, went up for sale for a combined $3.75 million. The buildings on the 900 block Locust Street buildings had been designated as the site of a proposed boutique Indigo Hotel.
