It is very likely you live in a market with a local TV station that is owned by Tegna. Now a deal for Standard General to buy Tegna for $8.6 billion is one step closer to becoming a reality.
Tegna owns or operates 66 television stations in 54 markets. These stations include ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC affiliates, to name a few. When this deal closes Tegna owned stations will become part of a larger group of local TV stations.
There have been fears over the deal, but Standard General is trying to put these fears to rest, especially when it comes to local news.
“We believe in the power and the value of local news and we want to make it better by helping the industry evolve to meet it challenges of the digital age,” Standard General’s Chief Investment Officer Soohyung Kim said according to tvtech. “The track record speaks for itself. We have never reduced local content. We’ve increased newsroom staffing at our current stations by 20%. In fact, in our 12 year history in broadcasting we’ve added more than 40,000 hours of local news. We’ve been clear from the beginning that we intend to grow the new operations and last month to be submitted formal commitments to our regulators….not to reduce jobs for at least two years.”
Standard General already owns 18 TV stations thanks to a deal with the Cox Media Group that was completed in August of 2022.
The Tenga sale comes as there is a growing movement of local TV stations consolidating into larger groups or being bought up by investment groups. This move is largely being pushed by the growth of cord cutting into retransmission fees from cable TV companies.
The only thing left now for Tegna to sell to Standard General is FCC approval. With the FCC comment period over, many hope this will happen soon.