Marshall Broadcasting Group Files Chapter 11

Marshall Broadcasting Group, a Houston-based minority-owned television broadcasting company whose three Fox-affiliated stations are operated through a shared services agreement with Nexstar Media Group, filed for chapter 11 protection today in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.

The company reports $50 million to $100 million in both assets and liabilities. The debtor is represented by Levene, Neale, Bender, Yoo & Brill as general bankruptcy counsel and Gray Reed & McGraw as local bankruptcy counsel. The case number is 19-36743. The case has been assigned to Judge Jeffrey P. Norman.

On April 2, Marshall announced on its website that it filed a lawsuit against Nexstar Media Group, who the debtor says “financially hobbled MBG and limited the company’s ability to operate the stations by: overcharging for its stations at the outset, working to drive MBG out of business by attempting to cause the company to default on its credit facility and consistently interfering in MBG’s sales and programming operations, in direct violation of FCC directives and mandates.”

The debtor accuses Nextstar of “pretending” to support the FCC’s “admirable and often-stated goal of increasing ethnic diversity in ownership of broadcast stations and ensuring that a broad diversity of voices and viewpoints are delivered on the public airwaves” by partnering with Marshall Broadcasting Group to obtain FCC approval for a transaction, “but as soon as the deal was done, it purposefully worked to undermine MBG.”

The debtor’s largest unsecured creditor is Nexstar, which holds a $15.3 million claim described as “SSA and JSA fees (net of offsets for amounts owed by Nexstar to debtor).”