TV Tokyo Broadband Entertainment Inc. said Thursday it will become the biggest shareholder in FM Inter-Wave Inc., purchasing a 39 percent equity stake in the struggling radio broadcaster in a deal valued at 1 billion yen.
TV Tokyo Broadband, an Internet-related affiliate of TV Tokyo Corp., hopes to help FM Inter-Wave turn its business around and is considering an online music distribution service linked with radio broadcasting, it said.
TV Tokyo Broadband will buy the FM Inter-Wave shares from newspaper publisher The Japan Times Ltd. and Nifco Inc., a manufacturer of industrial fasteners, on Friday.
FM Inter-Wave was established in 1996 amid calls for a radio broadcaster to serve the foreign community in times of disaster in the wake of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, but the radio station has been in the red since its inception.