OTA Broadcasting, backed by computer retailing billionaire Michael Dell, agrees to buy low-power WYCN-LP Derry, N.H., from Bill Binnie, who will continue to operate the station. Binnie also owns full-power WBIN Derry. Both stations are in the Boston market.
DMA 7
OTA Scoops Up Boston LPTV For $4.1M
Add one more TV station to the expanding broadcast stable of computer retailing billionaire Michael Dell — WYCN-LP Derry, N.H., on the fringe of the Boston market.
Dell’s OTA Broadcasting, which is thought to be accumulating stations so that it can sell their spectrum to the government for a planned auction to wireless carriers, agreed to purchase the station from New Hampshire 1 Network Inc. for $4.1 million, according to an FCC filing seeking approval of the deal.
The seller is Bill Binnie, who also owns and manages full-power WBIN Derry.
“WBIN will continue to manage and program TV-13 [WYCN-LP] from our WBIN-TV studios; this transaction will not impact TV-13’s viewers,” Bill Binnie said in a story in the local Foster’s Daily Democrat.
WYCN-LP currently airs My Family Network, a classic TV network produced by Luken Communications.
The Daily Democrat story also quotes WBIN CFO Mark Graham as saying WBIN is turning a $4 million profit on the sale of the low-power station. “This kind of extraordinary profit shows we are on the right track.”
BRAND CONNECTIONS
OTA earlier this month agreed to buy WLWC Providence, R.I. (DMA 53), from Sinclair Broadcast Group for $13,750,000.
OTA has bought at least three other full-power stations for a total of $16.1 million.
Comments (1)
Ellen Samrock says:
January 17, 2013 at 11:42 am
It should be noted that WYCN-LP is Class A station and therefore eligible to participate in the voluntary incentive auction.