Little Rock’s KATV, Channel 7, is one of seven television stations Allbritton Communications will sell to Sinclair Broadcast Group in a deal announced Monday worth $985 million.
The sale also includes a 24-hour cable/satellite news channel, News Channel 8, that covers the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. All of the Allbritton stations are affiliated with the ABC network.
Other stations involved in the sale include: WJLA in Washington, D.C.; WBMA/ WCFT/WJSU, Birmingham, Ala.; WHTM, Harrisburg/ Lancaster/Lebanon/York, Pa.; KTUL in Tulsa; WSET, Roanoke, Va.; and WCIV, Charleston, S.C. The three Birmingham stations, considered as one, simulcast local and network programming to the combined market, according to Sinclair.
Messages seeking comment from KATV General Manager Mark Rose weren’t returned Monday. Lucy Rutishauser, Sinclair’s vice president and treasurer, also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Doug Krile, executive director of the Arkansas Broadcasters Association, called the sale “an indication of an industry trend” toward consolidation as media companies look to buy up stations in profitable markets.
“I expect they’ll keep things pretty much the way they are,” Krile said, especially since KATV will be the only property owned by Sinclair in the Little Rock market. Any cost-savings running the station will likely come from consolidating operations such as bookkeeping, he added, rather than from coverage since Sinclair was “a very early adopter of centralized management.”
WJLA competes in the Washington market, the eighth largest of the 210 “designated market areas” in the United States. Little Rock/Pine Bluff is ranked 56th among the markets involved in the sale. Birmingham is ranked 42nd, Harrisburg at 43rd, Tulsa, 59th, Roanoke, 68th, and Charleston, 98th. Combined, the Allbritton broadcast stations cover 4.9 percent of U.S. television households, according to Sinclair.
In a statement released about the purchase, David Smith, Sinclair’s president and chief executive officer, said News Channel 8 in particular will add to the company because its “regional cable presence provides the perfect platform should we decide to expand it into other markets.” Smith said the cable channel purchase also allows Sinclair to be “connected to our branches of government and be at the pulse of national issues in a once-in-a-lifetime event.”
The deal is subject to approval by the Federal Communications Commission and Sinclair expects the purchase will close sometime in the fourth quarter of this year. As part of the deal announced Monday, Sinclair officials said the company expects the FCC will require it to sell broadcast licenses and related assets for several stations it already owns, including WABM in Birmingham, WTTO in Harrisburg, and WMMP in Charleston.
KATV, in a statement posted on its website, said Sinclair will purchase the stock of a company owned and controlled by the Allbritton family, Perpetual Corp., as well the equity interest of another Allbritton-owned company, Charleston Television LLC.
In a statement to viewers posted on the station’s website, KATV Digital Executive Producer Evan Hoffmeyer wrote that the station “wants to emphasize that this is only a behind-the-scenes business matter happening at the corporate level. KATV will continue to bring you the best local news, weather and sports coverage you have counted on us to provide for more than 50 years.”
Allbritton bought KATVand its sister station, Tulsa’s KTUL, in 1983 for $81 million from Leake TV Inc., which had owned the Little Rock station since it began broadcasting in 1953.
Earlier this year, privately held Allbritton, based in Alexandria, Va., announced it wanted to put its television broadcast holdings on the block so it could concentrate on other media, including Politico, its politics website and newspaper.
Krile said industry observers had expected Allbritton to sell NewsChannel 8 to one buyer and its broadcast stations to another. He was surprised to see the cable channel and broadcast stations sold to a single company.
With the Allbritton purchase, Sinclair, based in Hunt Valley, Md., north of Baltimore, will own and operate or provide sales services to 149 television stations in 76 markets, reaching approximately 38.2%of U.S. television households. It said that its stations are affiliated with all major networks and include 33 FOX stations, 27 ABC, 25 CBS, 23 CW, 20 MyNetwork TV, 14 NBC, five Univision, one Azteca and one independent station.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/30/2013