TV Deals

Fresh details were revealed Wednesday regarding Sinclair Broadcast Group's blockbuster merger plans with Tribune Media, thanks to the official filing of a flurry of Form 315 applications with the FCC. While the deal could only be made possible with the pending reinstatement of the FCC's "UHF discount," Sinclair revealed that it could divest stations in no less than 10 different markets.

There are plenty of concerns surfacing across the nation about the proposed merger between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media. The latest entity to voice its opposition to the deal is an association representing some 800 of the smallest, mostly rural cable operators scattered throughout the U.S. 

CBS affiliate WJAX-47 in Jacksonville has enjoyed close ties with the market's FOX affiliate, WFOX-30, for a decade. It's the result of a sale of WJAX, formerly known as WTEV, by Clear Channel that closed in March 2008.  Since July 2012, Cox Media Group has operated the two stations, with WJAX owned by Bayshore Television — a partner to CMG that would allow the company to avoid breaking the FCC's Top Four rule while maintaining operational control via a shared services and sales agreement. Now, Bayshore is selling WJAX. Nothing is poised to change for viewers, for staff, or for Cox.

Philip Falcone's HC2 Station Group has just filed its third Form 345 FCC filing this week, and this time around the owner of the Azteca América broadcast TV network is acquiring a licensed and silent LPTV facility in a big Midwestern market. An escrow deposit has already been made.

No less than three deals involving TV stations in Wyoming are being filed with the FCC and are expected to appear in the CDBS this week. The trio of transactions saw Kalil & Co. serve as the exclusive broker in each of these station trades.

In recent years, tuning to Channel 32 in Columbus, Ohio, would have yielded the Movies! affiliate, with the Weigel diginet siblings Heroes & Icons and Start TV networks on its DT signals. Now, the low-power TV station is being sold to a religious broadcaster that's held a Time Brokerage Agreement for the facility since 2019.

Former HC2 Holdings leader Philip Falcone has emerged as the head of a new entity seeking to build a collection of low-power TV stations as part of a spectrum play. He's signed off on several deals across 2021. Now, he's putting his signature on an asset purchase agreement involving a California property.

Its assets include NPR Member station WFYI-FM and PBS Member station WFYI-20 in Indianapolis. Soon, it will be adding a low-power TV station to its property collection — thanks to a donation being made by a prolific trader of late in the LPTV arena.

It has a history that includes an affiliation with the small Asia Vision television network. Now, this Philadelphia-area low-power TV station is being spun to the purveyor of Christian and family programming headquartered in Allentown, Pa. Patrick Communications' Greg Guy brokered the deal.

With Greg Guy of Patrick Communications serving as their broker, the stations are being spun to a fast-growing Michigan-based operator committed to providing information without political commentary to viewers on its own properties.

There are already two major MVPD deals pending, and now we can add a third

A noncommercial TV station operated by a community college district in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose DMA could have earned millions of dollars from participating in the FCC's Spectrum Auction. That didn't happen, and now the facility is being sold for a fraction of what it could have fetched — allegedly due to one person's error. Who's the buyer? It's a player north of the Golden Gate Bridge that's now salivating at an opportunity to challenge PBS giant KQED.

A presently silent low-power TV station serving Ohio's state capital is heading to a new owner. This facility was once the market's home for Azteca América programming. Who's the buyer? An Oxford-educated, New York-based investor in TV and media who runs a mini private equity portfolio.

On Thursday RBR+TVBR exclusively reported on the acquisition of three LPTVs in the San Francisco DMA by HC2 Holdings. It is now known that the seller of these low-power facilities is not leaving the area: It has just acquired a full-power facility, in Mendocino County, in order to continue broadcasts to the market.