There will be the occasional local outlier, but as scale becomes more and more of an issue in the local TV market, it certainly obligates these small market station owners to sell.
The Cedar Rapids Gazette brought to KCRG the backing of the town's newspaper and the strength of its news reputation. But it had to go alone on many of the sales, programming acquisition and services sides.
Gray loses a good portion of the newspaper connection, but think. It will run its own national sales business in the near future. It has a standardized graphics package. It buys syndicated programming, negotiates network affiliation, etc. on national-level contracts.
Gray has snapped up quite a few stations in recent years from isolated clusters and single-station owners. KEVN, KMVT, WAGM, KOSA, now KCRG. It's a great strategy for them as they are getting decently rated stations in each market. And in the case of KCRG, they may be paying a premium but it's because Iowa is evergreen in terms of political advertising.