Your Local ABC Station May Have a New Owner Today

This week Scripps announced that it had completed the sale of 3 ABC stations from Raycom as part of a bigger Raycom and Gray merger. With this sale, Scripps now owns KXXV, KRHD, and WTXL as Gray works to meet the DOJ required sale of stations in order for them to buy Raycom media’s stations.

“The acquisitions of the Waco and Tallahassee stations and those from Cordillera increase the scale of our portfolio and deepen our presence in politically important markets including Florida, Texas and Colorado,” said the president of local news, Brian Lawlor. “These strong additions to our footprint help advance our strategies to improve margin profile, cash flow and operating performance.”

This is all part of a bigger deal that will see Gray Television acquire Raycom Media to become the 3rd largest owners of broadcast TV stations. With this deal, the new company will own 142 full-power television stations in 92 markets. The deal is reportedly worth $3.46 billion and Wells Fargo will finance $2.525 billion of the deal.

Scripps is not done buying stations as later this year they will close on 15 more stations in 10 markets from Cordillera. Here are some of the stations that will be apart of that deal:

• WLEX, the NBC affiliate in Lexington, Ky.
• KOAA, the NBC affiliate in Colorado Springs, Colo.
• KATC, the ABC affiliate in Lafayette, La.
• KSBY, the NBC affiliate in Santa Barbara-San Luis Obispo, Calif.
• KRIS, the NBC affiliate, and KAJA, a Telemundo affiliate, in Corpus Christi, Texas.
• KPAX and KAJJ, a CBS affiliate in Missoula, Mont.

• KTVQ, a CBS affiliate in Billings, Mont.
• KXLF/KBZK, the CBS affiliate in Butte-Bozeman, Mont.
• KRTV, the CBS affiliate, and KTGF, the NBC affiliate, in Great Falls, Mont..
• KTVH, the NBC affiliate, and KXLH, the CBS affiliate, in Helena, Mont.

This is just one more sign of the slow consolidation in local broadcast TV. With Raycom and Gray’s stations merging along with Tribune-owned stations once again up for sale look for more mergers to come in the years ahead.

Source: Adweek

Did you know we have a YouTube Channel? Every week we have a live Cord Cutting Q&A, and weekly Cord Cutting recap shows exclusively on our YouTube Channel!

Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more news, tips, and reviews. Need cord cutting tech support? Join our Cord Cutting Tech Support Facebook Group for help.