The broadcast media company controlled by Patricia and Brian Lane and led on a day-to-day basis by COO Gene Steinberg has signed off on the sale of a television station serving a small city in the state of Washington.
The buyer? It is a regional operator with a formidable presence in the Pacific Northwest.
KWAL-9 in Walla Walla, Wash., which is a new station that Marquee Broadcasting completed construction of is being sold by its Marquee Broadcasting West Inc. unit to KHQ Inc.
That’s the Washington State licensee linked to Cowles Co. and a unit that sees KHQ-TV General Manager Neal Boling in a key leadership role.
With Jason Rademacher at Cooley LLP serving as the buyer’s legal counsel, Cowles is paying $1.6 million for the newly built TV station. A $400,000 escrow payment has been made to Marquee.
Marquee’s legal counsel is Dan Kirkpatrick of BakerHostetler.
While KWAL is physically located within the Yakima and Tri-Cities, Wash., DMA, “KHQ has been informed” that Nielsen will consider the station to be part of the Spokane market “in consideration of the fact that the majority of its signal contour will serve viewers in the Spokane DMA.”
Regardless of whether the Commission considers KWAL-TV to be part of the Yakima DMA or the Spokane DMA, the proposed transaction complies with 47 C.F.R. §73.3555(b), Cowles asserts. That’s because KWAL will not be a “top four” network affiliate, and would effectively become a sibling of KHQ-TV, the NBC affiliate in Spokane. In the Yakima and Tri-Cities market, Cowles owns KNDO-TV and satellite KNDU-TV.
