Jump to content

Sinclair actually divests a station: WLAJ to be sold to upstart company, operated by Young Broadcast


T.L. Hughes

Recommended Posts

With the number of station purchases that Sinclair Broadcast Group has made over the past year-and-a-half, it's hard to remember the last time that Sinclair actually sold off a station. The company announced that it would sell ABC affiliate WLAJ/Lansing, Michigan to Shield Media (a company run by White Knight Broadcasting president Sheldon Galloway) for $14.4 million. Sinclair acquired the station as part of the company's November 2011 purchase of Freedom Communications' television station group.

 

Under the agreement, WLAJ's operations will be turned over to Young Broadcasting under a shared services agreement, creating a virtual triopoly with Young-owned CBS affiliate WLNS-TV and MyNetworkTV affiliate WHTV, which Young operates under a joint sales agreement with Venture Technologies Group (Shield entered into a similar agreement in Albany, New York in July to take over Fox affiliate WXXA and turns its operations over to Young's ABC affiliate WTEN). Effectively, this leaves the only independently-operating stations in the market as Gray Television's NBC affiliate WILX and Journal Broadcast Group's Fox affiliate WSYM.

 

Even with the WLAJ sale, Sinclair will still have a glut of stations in its portfolio: once the acquisition of its share of the Newport Television stations and WTTA/Tampa go through, it will own 67 stations outright and operate another 18 stations through joint sales and shared services agreements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

BUMP!

 

Sinclair's first divestiture since it sold WGGB in Springfield, MA to a local firm over five and a half years ago, appears to be finalized. The website wlaj.com has been redirected to wlns.com. This just happened today, so that means its has been consummated. Here's the consummation note, which occured on Friday (3/1) and posted this morning (3/4).

 

No word if WLNS will start adding any news shows on WLAJ, but we'll eventually hear something.

 

EDIT: Parts of the old WLAJ website is still up and running.

 

Sidenote: Does Sheldon Galloway love the medieval times? You know White Knight/Sheild names makes me think that. What's next Sword & Armour?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
mlive.com states that WLNS will simulcast its 6pm & 11pm newscast on WLAJ 53 starting this Monday, April 1st. The station will also start simulcasting its morning newscast on April 15th. The reasoning is that areas in the Jackson & Hillsdale counties can see WLAJ's signal better than WLNS's signal, and their simulcasting will help WLNS do more live shots in those areas.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using TVNewsTalk you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.