WTOV, WJAC to Sinclair
February 25, 2013
We reported several months ago that Cox, long-time owner of Pittsburgh’s WPXI-TV (11), was looking to get out of the smaller markets including Steubenville and Johnstown. FTVLive is reporting that the two NBC affiliates – WTOV-TV (9 Steubenville) and WJAC-TV (6 Johnstown) – and two FOX affiliates elsewhere are headed to Sinclair. Sinclair owns Pittsburgh’s WPGH-TV (53) and WPMY-TV (22).
UPDATE: Tom Taylor NOW is reporting in the daily newsletter today that the deal is worth $99 Million minus $4.3 million in working capital adjustments. Meanwhile, Cox obtained $106 million when it sold 26 radio properties in 6 markets.
Former Channel 11 GM John Howells had a dream. Interconnect the NBC affiliated stations in the Tri State Area and create a local media powerhouse. It never quite worked that way because as we all learned–Johnstown and Steubenville are distinct markets with news stories that have impact only in those markets. When I was at Channel 11 we really could only synch with Channel 9 or Channel 6 occasionally. And we never did really interconnect–so sharing video and stories among the stations sometimes provide to be difficult–particularly with breaking news. Many times an item that interested Channel 11 was not covered by the smaller stations. Because the Pittsburgh market is so competitive, sometimes Channel 11 couldn’t provide enough support to the smaller stations when they needed coverage in Pittsburgh. When it worked–it was great. Channel 6 provided some great back up in the early days of the Jerry Sandusky story. Channel 9 proved to be a good incubator for talant wanting to move up to Pittsburgh. In the digital age, Channel 11 has been able to get Pittsburgh video out to the other stations faster.
I think Sinclair’s idea has a lot of merit. They plan to create a separate corporate entity run the smaller market stations. That means they can meet different sales and revenue benchmarks and not be overshadowed by large market stations and large market priorities.