Who Owns Your TV (Station)?

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[Commentary] Politico’s Brooks Boliek wrote an article this week that really caught our eye. In “Broadcast TV landscape is shifting under FCC” Boliek notes there’s been a string of broadcast television station deals announced of late. We’ve seen the headlines, too, obviously: Sinclair Broadcast Group has agreed to buy Allbritton TV stations for $985 million. The Gannett Company agreed to buy the Belo Corporation for about $1.5 billion in cash, in a deal that almost doubles Gannett’s television operations. Media General and privately held New Young Broadcasting announced an agreement to combine the two companies. Tribune Company to purchase 19 television stations owned by Local TV Holdings in a $2.73-billion deal that is expected to make Tribune the largest television station group in the country! The value of merger and acquisition deals among pure-play broadcasters—companies devoted entirely to television and not owned by major networks—will likely range from $3.5 billion to more than $6 billion in 2013-2014. Just what the heck is going on in TV? And what, if anything, is the Federal Communications Commission doing about it? Boliek writes, “Taken together, the deals signal a reshaping of the broadcast business as it consolidates into larger station groups that provide more leverage as they buy programming and sell it to pay-TV operators. As the industry shifts, the FCC has been slow to act with its media ownership rules in flux.”


Who Owns Your TV (Station)?