The $115.35 million deal, first reported in March, adds three Fox, two CW and one CBS affiliates in California, Nebraska and Iowa to Sinclair’s portfolio.
DMAS 55, 75 & 147
Sinclair Buys 6 Titan Television Stations
Sinclair Broadcast Group announced Monday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the stock and broadcast assets of four television stations owned by Titan Television Broadcast Group (TTBG) $115.35 million. TVNewsCheck first reported on the sale on March 29. Sinclair also will assume TTBG agreements to provide sales and other services to two other stations. The TTBG stations are located in three markets and reach 1% of U.S. TV households. Completion of the transaction is subject to the customary closing conditions, including FCC approval and antitrust clearance.
Sinclair said it anticipates that the transaction will close and fund late in the third quarter/early in the fourth quarter of 2013. The company said it expects to fund the purchase price at closing, less the $11.5 million escrow deposit made at signing, through cash on hand and/or a previously committed delayed draw term loan A under Sinclair’s recently amended bank credit facility.
Upon completion of the transaction, Sinclair will continue to provide the sales and other services to KXVO Omaha, Neb., and KMEG Sioux City, Iowa, that TTBG has historically provided.
The TTBG stations to be owned and operated, programmed or to which sales services will be provided, are:
- KMPH Fresno, Calif. (Fox) DMA 55
- KFRE Fresno, Calif. (CW) DMA 55
- KPTM Omaha, Neb. (Fox) DMA 75
- KXVO Omaha, Neb. (CW) DMA 75
- KMEG Sioux City, Iowa (CBS) DMA 147
- KPTH Sioux City, Iowa (Fox) DMA 147
Commenting on the transaction, David Smith, Sinclair president-CEO of Sinclair, stated: “We are pleased to bring the TTBG stations into the Sinclair portfolio. They will complement the California properties we are acquiring from Fisher, as well as add to our Iowa presence and give us our first stations in Nebraska. We welcome all of them to the Sinclair group.”
Comments (11)
Joanne McDonald says:
June 3, 2013 at 8:02 pm
I would picture Sinclair targeting Pappas stations not affected from the original Pappas bankruptcy such as KSWT, Nebraska Television Network aka NTV (KHGI, KWNB)/KFXL FOX Nebraska, KCWi/KDMI, WIWN, and WLGA to put about half or most of Pappas Telecasting back together again before the bankruptcy but with Sinclair already planning to run KDBC with KFOX in El Paso, and KRXI and KAME in Reno in lieu of KREN and KAZR (now KRNS) being owned by Entravision. I doubt NexStar would even want to buy more stations like wanting to acquiring those Pappas stations as well. I would even picture Una Vez Mas buying KAZA, Journal or Meredith buying KSWT and NTV (KHGI/KWNB)/KFXL (Meredith with KSWT, Journal with NTV/KFXL), Hearst buying KCWI, Sinclair buying KDMI for it’s programming assets, Journal or LIN or Meredith or whoever buys WITI buying WIWN, and Media General buying WLGA. The bad part is very big bad ugly retransmission consent fights with Dish, Directv, Charter, Comcast, Mediacom, Time Warner Cable, CableOne, Suddenlink, and other cable operators big and small in the future who would suffer from very paying big high ugly retransmission consent fees to carry the stations Sinclair already owns and operates and those that they have bought recently.
Keith ONeal says:
June 3, 2013 at 11:04 pm
WLAG carries WeatherNation. That’s how much Pappas thinks about that station. Sell it to the ION Media Group, so that it can carry some REAL programming!
Keith ONeal says:
June 3, 2013 at 11:05 pm
Sorry, it’s WLGA, not WLAG.
Angie McClimon says:
June 4, 2013 at 9:47 am
Sinclair is on a buying spree. They will soon collapse under the weight of their debt.
Mark Annas says:
June 4, 2013 at 9:52 am
I concur with TVMN…it is a really shaky house of cards. The concerning thing is that there are other, smaller companies that are trying to buy stations, but the venture capital firms give priority to Sincalir & Nexstar…what’s up with that??????
Maria Black says:
June 4, 2013 at 10:48 am
Well, Nexstar comes in, fires half the staff and runs two stations like one. That means the station starts “making money” so investment groups are all about that.
solange attwood says:
June 4, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Suck it up and deal with it, SalesGrrl
Roxanne Tedeschi says:
June 4, 2013 at 11:41 am
Look… The handwriting is on the wall. Sinclair knows what to do. They will get as many stations as they can, then “re-pack” all channels in each market, so they can sell more than half of the RF channels they will have to the FCC.
When the dust settles, there will be no more than two to three broadcast operators in each market.
Why is this so hard to undrestand. Big Fish eat the Little Fish and keep on trucking………
Mark Annas says:
June 4, 2013 at 11:51 am
LongLiveOTA – very depressing scenario
Ellen Samrock says:
June 4, 2013 at 3:14 pm
The gloom and doom posted here is unwarranted. Sinclair is all about running broadcast stations as broadcast stations, not as cash-out auction sacrifices. As Mark Aiken sees it, the more stations they acquire, the less spectrum the FCC will have available as inventory. Smart strategy. And not to disillusion anyone or the FCC, commercial broadcasting is a business not a charity. Staff reductions are, at times, necessary. But broadcast television also has far more public interest regulations then does radio. Don’t expect to see the same kind of consolidation abuse we’ve seen with Clear Channel (and for that matter, don’t expect to see from Sinclair the same kind of mistakes Bain Capital made when acquiring CC). Sinclair is a healthy, well-run company that believes in the future of OTA television. If they can pick up the stray and wounded stations along the way and make them strong, my baseball cap is off to them.
bill schneider says:
September 24, 2013 at 8:59 pm
Well stated D BP