Updated at 1:30pm Eastern
A family feud involving an ousted Chief Executive Officer and his twin brother who he had been at odds with over the future of their parents’ media business effectively ended in October 2024, the CEO of Block Communications, Inc., back in the role after heading to a Lucas County, Ohio, court.
The family squabble was directly tied to the future of the company’s media assets, and their potential sale. Now, BCI has moved forward with saying goodbye to its TV stations.
Agreeing to buy them is Gray Media.
In an announcement distributed by Gray on Friday morning, publicly traded Gray said it has reached an agreement with BCI to acquire its television stations for $80 million.
The assets are branded as “WDRB Media” and are comprised of WDRB-TV, the FOX station in Kentucky’s largest market, Louisville. BCI is the owner and operator of the ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX affiliates serving Lima, Ohio — WLIO and WOHL; WAND-TV in Decatur, Ill.; and Louisville-based WBKI-TV, which features The CW on its 58.1 main channel and MyNetwork TV programming on its DT3 signal.
“We expect the transaction to strengthen our presence in the Midwest by creating a new Big Four duopoly in one market and by adding top-ranked local news stations in two more midwestern markets that can support and benefit from our strong local stations in adjacent markets,” Gray said.
WBKI and WDRB would become siblings of Gray-owned NBC affiliate WAVE-3 in Lousivlle.
“Gray anticipates closing these transactions in the fourth quarter of this year following receipt of regulatory approval, including certain waivers of the FCC’s current ownership rules, and other customary closing conditions,” the company said.
As of today, the TV stations are led by Bill Lamb, who quietly returned to BCI in October 2024 and serves as VP of BCI Broadcasting and, concurrently, as GM of WDRB Media.
Dale Woods, who became VP/TV Broadcasting for the BCI Television Group in October 2019, departed with Lamb’s return from a job in Los Angeles. Lamb had taken the job in mid-2019 at KTTV-11 and KCOP-13 after serving for 17 years at Block Communications, exiting for the Southern California position as VP of Broadcast Operations and WDRB GM. Before first joining WDRB some 23 years ago, he was VP/GM of then-Midwest Television-owned WMBD-TV, WMBD-AM & WPBG-FM in Peoria, Ill. He’s also held a stint as GSM of WPLG-10 in Miami, from 1993-1995.
BCI is also the parent of Toledo-area internet service provider Buckeye Broadband. It also owns major daily newspapers the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade.
In fall 2024, the fate of Allan Block and his future as the Chief Executive Officer of family-owned Block Communications Inc. was the hot gossip topic for many in Western Pennsylvania and in Toledo. His estrangement from his twin brother, newspaper publisher John Robinson Block, and other BCI board members, was said to be tied to Allan Block’s insistence that a sale not transpire. A Lucas County Common Pleas Court judge was days away from a trial when an agreement to bring Block back to the CEO chair was finalized.
