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 has ended, with the CEO back in the role after heading to a Lucas County, Ohio, court.
Allan Block is heading back to the Chief Executive’s chair at Block Communications Inc. (BCI), owner of WDRB Media, comprised of WDRB-TV, the FOX station in Kentucky’s largest market. 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 WBKI-TV, which features The CW on its 58.1 main channel and MyNetwork TV programming on its DT3 signal.
BCI also owns major daily newspapers the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade.
In an announcement shared by the Pittsburgh newspaper, the 122-year-old media company said Mr. Block’s reappointment settles the family squabble.
Lucas County Common Pleas Court visiting Judge Jonathan P. Hein on July 3, 2024, decided Allan Block’s employment agreement “explicitly requires that ‘cause’ must exist” before he could be removed as chief executive. As such, BCI’s lawyers overstepped the language stipulated in Allan Block’s agreement when it shared with the court last month that the company’s board of directors could “remove an officer regardless of contractual rights with or without cause.”
This put the wheels in motion on Mr. Block’s return, and perhaps put a stop to the sale of The Blade and other BCI properties, including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. That concern is what triggered Allan Block’s estrangement from his twin brother, newspaper publisher John Robinson Block, and other BCI board members.
A trial had been scheduled to begin in days.
