I guess market caps aren't a thing anymore. This will merge our local WATE (ABC) and WBIR (NBC). One news staff will be laid off.The deal has been struck and will more than likely be approved within six months with zero divestments. Curious if Carr issues a statement in full support of it to get the ball rolling on congress/senate removing the cap outright.
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. Enters into Definitive Agreement To Acquire TEGNA Inc. for $6.2 Billion in Accretive Transaction | Nexstar Media Group, Inc.
Enhances Nexstar’s Position as a Leading Local Media Company Preserves High-Quality Local Journalism and Diversity of Opinion Strengthens Ability towww.nexstar.tv
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Nexstar ready to hook up with TEGNA?
- Thread starter only1moore
- Start date
The only major television chain I know of that has a major debt problem is Sinclair, and it and their satellite companies are tightly controlled by the Smith family. Nexstar and Gray have very manageable debt loads IIRC and Scripps and Graham have backing from Berkshire Hathaway.
In Knoxville, if one has to be sold off, it's a coin toss. But if market caps aren't a thing, we see which news department gets laid off
Add Columbus to the mix. Nexstar will also be adding WBNS-AM-FM along with a potential second TV. WBNS-FM is mostly live-and-local sports talk, is the flagship of Ohio State sports, and makes money for Tegna. The AM side, not so much; WBNS (AM) runs syndicated sports talk on a graveyard AM signal (albeit with a vintage Blaw-Knox tower).
Back to TV: Just like in all the other markets, a merger of the WCMH and WBNS-TV newsrooms is concerning. I know of a couple of on-air folks at the 10TV morning show who just got there within the last three months, and recently they've been promoting the return of Jeff Hogan like crazy. Now, it's a wait and see game for everyone at both stations.
Regarding facilities: Both WCMH and the WBNS stations' respective studios are more than 70 years old, and are four miles apart. Channels 4 and 10, and 97.1 also share the candelabra tower adjacent to the WBNS studios. It would make sense that WCMH make the move down Olentangy River Road to 770 Twin Rivers Drive (WBNS) for that reason alone. I also believe Tegna made some upgrades to the 'BNS plant in recent years, not including moving radio in there.
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I wonder about Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA where Tegna owns ABC affiliate WNEP and Nexstar owns or operates the ABC and CBS affiliates (WBRE/WYOU.) Hard to imagine that even the current iteration of the FCC would allow a tripoly like this. Another factor to consider in this merger is the status of third party news aggregators like NewsON and Zeam where Tegna content would likely be going away as Nexstar tightly controls distribution of its content.
I’m thinking of WTIC-TV. The Fox Affiliate being owned by Tegna.
Not in Phoenix...Gray-owned stations (3TV/CBS5/AZFSN) all operate under the "Arizona's Family" monicker.
Media General, actually, which had just bought LIN.
I never have been able to figure that out. Gannett was always a great TV but lousy newspaper operator. Belo was the exact opposite. The merger of the two brought the worst of both companies together. TEGNA getting out of the business is almost a mercy killing, though Nexstar isn't known for being great.
It's also about $2 billion less than what Standard General was going to pay for it. As several others have mentioned, Byron Allen's offer was never really considered serious from the beginning. Whether he could amass the capital he would've needed to make such a deal was always questioned.
I'd have to presume that WBIR is the surviving entity and WATE gets shuttered.
They'll keep them all, or attempt to. With Carr and Trusty friendly to Nexstar and the FTC and DOJ basically being as toothless as a wet noodle, there will be zero credible opposition or push to divest.
That also includes WKYC, which is set to become a rump to WJW-WBNX.
Hard-to-say. Typically, when a competitor gobbles up its crosstown rival, it keeps its people and dumps the newcomers, even when it bought the competition because it was performing better.
WATE is the existing Nexstar station so I'd think it would be the other way around.
Is WATE still based in the castle?
Yes, sure is!
I don’t see CBS going to WTOG anytime soon.
If anything, I can see Skydance selling CBS outright—including WTOG—to Nexstar.
Interestingly, the situation that is Memphis is going to be tricky. Either WREG or WATN/WLMT will have to be spun off.
Would we have cases where channel sharing will expand among the combined nexstar and tegna or stations moving to dt2 in places. Atlanta could see the CW moving to current tegna owned watl leaving gray with two Atlanta independents
There are likely going to be subchannels and program streams moving around to take advantage of the best signals.
I’ve posted this elsewhere, but in Houston TEGNA has KHOU on RF11 and KTBU on RF33, with the UHF being the superior signal. Nexstar’s KIAH RF34 is currently one of two full-power ATSC 3.0 stations in the market, with KIAH’s primary 39.1 ATSC 1.0 signal airing as a subchannel of Graham Media’s KPRC on RF35. I suspect that the 39.1 1.0 will go to one of the current TEGNA stations (likely RF33) while the other KIAH 1.0 subchannels, currently scattered amongst several stations, are shuffled around.
That’s going to be interesting because WATN/WLMT were at one point owned by Nexstar, but when Nexstar bought Tribune, Nexstar purchased WREG, a Tribune station, and sold WATN/WLMT to Tegna. Oddly, WJKT in Jackson has stayed with Nexstar this entire time. It was once a sister station to WATN/WLMT and carried some of their newscasts but now it’s a sister station to WREG and shows some of its newscasts.