LITTLE ROCK — Mission Broadcasting Inc. of Brecksville, Ohio, completed the $60 million cash purchase of two Little Rock television stations Thursday.

Mission, which is controlled by Irving, Texas based Nexstar Broadcasting Inc., bought KLRT-TV, Channel 16, a Fox affiliate, and KASN, Channel 38, a CW affiliate, from Newport Television of Kansas City, Mo. Nexstar owns KARKTV, Channel 4, in Little Rock.

Quarterly reports filed with the federal government indicate that Nexstar owns “controlling financial interest” in Mission. Nexstar’s balance sheet includes assets and liabilities of Mission.

The purchase first was announced in July, when Newport sold 22 stations, including 12 to Mission. The Federal Communications Commission has approved the sale and it closed Thursday.

Nexstar has entered into an outsourcing agreement with Mission to provide services to KLRT and KASN.

“We look forward to leveraging our knowledge of the Little Rock market, as we provide services to Mission for the benefit of viewers of KLRT and KASN while creating an even stronger marketing platform for local area businesses,” Perry Sook, Nexstar’s chairman and chief executive officer,said in a prepared statement.

Jennifer Neuman, a spokesman for Nexstar, said the company would not comment on personnel changes at the newly acquired Little Rock stations. Chuck Spohn, general manager with KLRT and KASN for more than 15 years, was dismissed Friday.

Spohn started KLRT’s news operation in 2004. It has received several state and regional awards since then, Spohn said.

Spohn, who was the most tenured general manager in the Little Rock television market, said he hopes to remain in Little Rock, possibly “getting into an ownership capacity” with a local business.

Before 1999, a single owner could not own two television stations in a market, said Al Tompkins, who is on the senior faculty for broadcast and online with the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“But stations got around the rules by having joint sales agreements in which one station ran another station without outright owning it,” Tompkins said. “Some critics have called these virtual duopolies because one station pretty much runs the other.”

There are about 60 virtual duopolies around the country, Tompkins said.

“One of the biggest losers [are] the cable companies, who fear they will have to pay bigger retransmission fees because the duopolies will have much more muscle in negotiations,” Tompkins said.

In a typical situation, there is some combining of the news operations when there is a joint agreement to run more than two stations, said Doug Krile, executive director of the Arkansas Broadcasters Association.

On some occasions, operations might be run out of one facility, Krile said.

“But the problem you have here is that both facilities [Channel 4 and Channel 16] are pretty darn nice,” Krile said.

Business, Pages 25 on 01/05/2013