“After the close of the combination,” reads a Gannett memo about the $2.2-billion purchase of Texas-based Belo, owner of KING 5 in Seattle and NW Cable News, “Gannett will strengthen our position as the number one local media company in America.” Virginia-based Gannett says it will be the fourth-largest owner of major network affiliates (leading in NBC and CBS affiliates, fourth in ABC), reaching one-third of U.S. households — though the company is perhaps best known as the owner of the USA TODAY newspaper.
If the FCC approves this media consolidation, the deal may close by the end of 2013.
The sale of Belo comes on the heels of the sale of Fisher Communications to the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a $373-million transaction that, also subject to FCC approval and any shareholder legal suits, is expected to close in Q3 of 2013. Maryland-based Sinclair, heavy on FOX and CBS affiliates, claims to reach about one-third of all U.S. households currently, a number that may climb to 37 percent after the acquisition. Their purchase of Fisher adds Seattle’s ABC affiliate KOMO 4 (and KOMO AM and FM stations) to their holdings — KOMO 4 had been the last locally-owned, commercial-broadcast TV station in Seattle.
KIRO 7, Seattle’s CBS affiliate, is owned by Georgia-based Cox Media Group (in 1997, Belo had traded KIRO 7 to Paramount/Viacom, who almost immediately traded it to Cox). Cox, famous or infamous for its ownership of Valpak, recently sold four TV stations of its own to Sinclair. Its two remaining West Coast stations, besides KIRO 7, are KTVU and KICU in California’s Bay area. KIRO 7’s sixteen years with CMG is almost matched by FOX affiliate KCPQ’s 15 years of ownership by The Tribune Company, the Illinois-based media conglomerate whose broadcast division runs 23 local TV stations, mostly CW and FOX affiliates.
KCTS 9 has been a PBS affiliate since 1970.
