WPIX’s New Mission: A Ownership Shift From Scripps

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On July 13,  paperwork was submitted to the FCC seeking its approval of the sale of a former Tribune Media property serving the Big Apple.


The buyer? A favored shared services partner of Nexstar Media Group.

The Commission gave its blessing to the deal, and on Wednesday (12/30) it formally closed.


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The E.W. Scripps Company is no longer the owner of The CW Network’s New York flagship, WPIX-11.

The station is now owned by Mission Broadcasting. And, it is a deal made possible through Nexstar’s decision to transfer its option to purchase the station to Mission.

The option price is $75 million, as previously reported by RBR + TVBR, plus accrued interest to be calculated on the period between the Sept. 19, 2019, purchase date of WPIX by Scripps and the option sale closing date.

Scripps purchased WPIX as part of its acquisition of eight television stations in seven markets from Nexstar. Those stations were being divested in connection with Nexstar Media Group’s acquisition of Tribune Media in September 2019.

Scripps will remain the nation’s fourth-largest independent TV station owner, with 59 stations in 41 markets.

Proceeds will be used to pay down debt and to help finance Scripps’ purchase of ION Media, Scripps EVP/CFO Lisa Knutson said. That deal is expected to close in early 2021.

Ion owns WPXN-31 in New York.

The acquisition by Mission, which handles sales and management for stations it arranges with Nexstar to handle production and news operations, is a far cry from what was originally anticipated in March 2018.

At the time, Sinclair Broadcast Group had filed an asset purchase agreement with the FCC noting it had struck an agreement to acquire and merge with Tribune Media.

To make the deal happen, Sinclair attempted to assign WPIX to a third-party owner but continue to operate it via a Joint Sales Agreement. As first reported by RBR+TVBR, WPIX-11 in New York was to be transferred from “WPIX LLC” to the similarly named licensee “New York (WPIX-TV) Licensee Inc.”

This entity was wholly controlled by Cunningham Broadcasting Corp., and its officer and director, Michael Anderson.

Cunningham describes itself as “an independent television broadcast company” that, together with its subsidiaries, owns and/or operates 20 television stations in 18 DMAs across the U.S.

Of these stations, 16 are operated “through various management agreements with Sinclair Broadcast Group,” illustrating that Cunningham — and not Sinclair — maintains control.

WPIX-11 was designed to join the group of stations falling under this group of Cunningham properties.

However, FCC scrutiny from Chairman Ajit Pai himself over Sinclair’s proposed merger with Tribune Media prompted the Commission to move forward with a Hearing Designation Order placing the deal in front of an Administrative Law Judge.

That never happened. Tribune and Sinclair scrapped the merger; Nexstar later stepped in and grabbed the properties.