A newly formed company serving a market that’s home to Purdue University is now the owner of one of the nation’s newest ABC affiliates.
It’s a formality, really: This company signed on the station in July 2017, and it has been owned by an affiliated operation.
Now, Bill Christian and Mike Reed are simply making a bookkeeping change with the FCC.
In a deal valued at $250,000, Star City Broadcasting is acquiring WPBY-LD 35 in Lafayette, Ind., from Woodland Communications.
While funds are being transferred, it is very much an “all in the family” deal: Woodland is led by the Corning, N.Y.-based Christian, while Star City is led by Reed.
The deal gives Star City full control over what has emerged in recent weeks as the primary home for ABC programming in Lafayette.
As RBR+TVBR reported March 9, Comcast subscribers in most of the Lafayette DMA are now being given WPBY as the exclusive ABC station offered; The E.W. Scripps Co.‘s ABC affiliated WRTV-6 in Indianapolis was dropped, per federal rules pertaining to DMAs and the “must carry” rights of a local station.
While Comcast could have kept WRTV as an alternate ABC affiliate, this was likely not an option due to retransmission fees it did not wish to pay.
Mississippi-based Star City took over WPBY’s back-end operations for Woodland via a TBA on March 20.
