Ten Newport Stations Now At Nexstar

Nexstar Broadcasting Group has closed its $225.5 million acquisition of 10 stations in seven markets from Newport Television, owned by Providence Equity Partners. The sales were part of a multi-buyer series of divestitures announced by Newport in July.

Nexstar noted that the deal also includes the Inergize Digital e-Media operations of Newport. A related deal for $60 million is to send KLRT (Fox) and KASN (CW) in Little Rock, Ark. (DMA 56) to Mission Broadcasting, whose stations are in shared services arrangements with Nexstar in numerous markets. The Nexstar announcement Monday did not say whether the Little Rock deal had also closed.

These stations are now part of Nexstar:

• Salt Lake City (DMA 33) — KTVX (ABC) and KUCW (CW)

• Memphis (DMA 49) — WPTY (ABC) and WLMT (CW)

• Syracuse, N.Y. (DMA 84) — WSYR (ABC)

• Binghamton, N.Y. (DMA 157) — WBGH (NBC) and WIVT (ABC)

• Elmira, N.Y. (DMA 174) — WETM (NBC)

• Jackson, Tenn. (DMA 176) — WJKT (Fox)

• Watertown, N.Y. (DMA 177) — WWTI (ABC)

“This transaction squarely meets our acquisition criteria from both an operating and financial perspective,” said Perry Sook, chairman-president-CEO of Nexstar. “The addition of the Newport stations substantially broadens Nexstar’s local television broadcasting platform with stations that are geographically complementary to and diversify our operating base while also presenting significant financial and operating synergies with the company’s existing portfolio. Inergize Digital, an industry leader offering fully integrated e-Media management solutions on-air, online and for mobile devices, brings multi-year contracts with approximately 75 stations and other entities outside of the Nexstar platform and these operations dovetail well and will be integrated with Nexstar’s existing e-Media and GoLocal.biz platforms.”