Allen Media Broadcasting is purchasing USA Television’s portfolio of 11 network affiliates in nine markets. Bob Prather has agreed to stay on to manage the group.
Byron Allen Buying 11 Stations For $290M
Byron Allen’s Allen Media Broadcasting on Tuesday announced an agreement to acquire 11 television stations from Bob Prather’s USA Television for $290 million. Prather has agreed to stay on to manage the group.
The stations in this deal are:
| DMA Rank | City of License | Station(s) | Affiliation |
| 78 | Huntsville – Decatur – Florence, AL | WAAY WAAY-D2 | ABC – ION |
| 110 | Ft. Wayne, IN | WFFT | FOX |
| 117 | Eugene, OR | KEZI KEZI-D2 KEZI-D3 | ABC – ION – METV |
| 131 | Chico-Redding, CA | KNVN* KNVN-DT2* KHSL KHSL-D2 KHSL-D5 |
NBC – TELEMUNDO – CBS – CW – ION |
| 133 | Columbus-Tupelo-West Point, MS | WTVA WLOV* WTVA-D2 | NBC – FOX – ABC |
| 135 | Medford-Klamath Falls, OR | KDRV KRDV-D2 | ABC – ANTENNA TV |
| 150 | Rochester, MN – Mason City, IA – Austin, MN | KIMT KIMT-D2 KIMT-D3 | CBS – MYTV – ION |
| 160 | Terre Haute, IN | WTHI WTHI-D2 WTHI-D3 | CBS – FOX – MYTV – CW |
| 187 | Lafayette, IN | WLFI WLFI-D2 WLFI-D3 | CBS – CW – ION |
| *Operated through joint sales and services agreement | |||
The USA TV portfolio is Byron Allen’s latest acquisition. In August, he partnered with Sinclair Broadcast Group to acquire 21 regional sports networks from Walt Disney/Fox for $10.6 billion. In July, he bought Bayou City Broadcasting, which included four TV stations in Evansville, Ind., for $165 million.
In March 2018, Allen acquired The Weather Channel.
After investing $455 million in broadcast television station acquisitions over the past three months, the addition of the USA TV portfolio grows the Allen Media Broadcasting group to 15 television stations across 11 U.S. markets.
“I have known Byron Allen for decades and we are delighted that these stations will now be part of his dynamic company,” said Prather. “These stations are dedicated to their local communities and this transaction will enable them to become even stronger on both their broadcast and digital platforms.”
BRAND CONNECTIONS
“Bob Prather is an excellent broadcaster and he has done a brilliant job of assembling a stellar management team to operate these very strong network affiliate broadcast stations,” said Byron Allen, founder-chairman-CEO of Entertainment Studios/Allen Media. “This is another milestone for our company, as we have now agreed to purchase our second broadcast network affiliate station group within the past three months, and continue to aggressively look for other opportunities to grow our global media company through strategic acquisitions.”
Comments (1)
[email protected] says:
October 1, 2019 at 7:58 pm
Let me guess his ES shows will be on all those TV stations.