Sinclair Television Group is transitioning three long-standing operational relationships into formal ownership through two asset purchase agreements covering a set of Pennsylvania and Florida stations it has managed for more than a decade.
On May 20 and 21, Sinclair signed separate deals to acquire the assets of Pennsylvania’s WOLF-TV and WQMY and Florida’s WGFL-TV from New Age Media.
Combined, the transactions total $3 million and are pending FCC approval.
The $1.8 million agreement for WOLF-TV and WQMY marks a full-circle return to a 2013 transaction. That year, New Age Media announced plans to sell the stations to Sinclair. But in 2014, the company withdrew its FCC transfer applications. Sinclair then acquired the stations’ non-license assets and began operating them under a master service agreement.
WGFL-TV in Gainesville, Florida, was part of that same master service framework. Sinclair has managed the CBS affiliate through joint sales and shared services agreements, coupled with MSA provisions similar to those used in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Under the new $1.2 million asset deal signed May 21, Sinclair will acquire WGFL’s tangible assets, intellectual property, and operating contracts.
Sinclair and New Age Media have agreed to maintain normal station operations during the regulatory approval process.
The move follows a similar transaction that broke last week in which Sinclair exercised a long-standing purchase option to acquire KMEG in Sioux City, along with its translators in Nebraska and Iowa, from Waitt Broadcasting, formalizing a shared services relationship that had been in place since 2005.
