In the final days of August, the parent company of a home shopping channel agreed to sell its full-power digital TV station serving Boston. At the same time, a channel-sharing agreement (CSA) was forged by the buyer to allow a company that collected millions in the recently concluded FCC incentive auction to use one-third of this digital station’s spectrum.
The asset purchase agreement and CSA recitals have finally found their way to the FCC via a Form 314 filing made Thursday (Oct. 5).
The seller is EVINE, which along with co-licensees Norwell Television LLC and ValueVision Media Acquisitions is divesting WWDP-46 in Norwell, Mass., to WRNN-TV Associates for $10 million.
A $500,000 escrow deposit is being made by the buyer to EVINE and the licensees.
At closing, there are caveats of benefit to the buyer should certain DBS carriage agreements not be in place: If WWDP is not on local DISH Network lineups, WRNN-TV Associates need only wire $333,333 of the purchase price to the escrow agent representing EVINE. If WWDP is not on the local DirecTV Network, the buyer need wire only $666,667. These are considered post-closing escrow deposits.
There is also language that states that, should WWDP not have new affiliation agreements in place within 60 days of their respective expiration, WRNN-TV may release $100,000 of the escrow deposit on a monthly basis until exhausted.
That’s just one part of this deal.
WRNN collected $211,680,472 in the spectrum auction for relinquishing the over-the-air channel associated with its New York DMA digital UHF, the final incarnation of what began as WTZA-62 in Kingston, N.Y., in the mid-1980s.
Another party attracted a sizable sum for giving up its broadcast spectrum, and that’s NRJ TV, owner of WMFP-62 in Boston. NRJ is receiving $93,647,708 for saying goodbye to the UHF signal.
But, it’s secured a channel sharing agreement, and it is with WRNN-TV.
Thus, WMFP’s programming will air on a digital sub-channel associated with WWDP-46.
Serving as the exclusive broker in this transaction is Media Venture Partners.
RNN’s legal counsel in this deal is Robert Benton and Jerita Salley of Wiley Rein LLP.
