Thanks to Sinclair’s deals to buy Tribune and Bonten, local broadcasting M&A deals hit $4.5 billion in the second quarter of 2017, according to S&P’s Kagan.
The $3.9 billion Sinclair-Tribune deal—which, if approved, would give Sinclair 42 more TV stations—accounted for 85% of all the quarter’s activity, Kagan said. The Baltimore-based group’s purchase of Bonten Media’s 17 full-powered stations for $240 million was the quarter’s second-largest deal.
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Saga Communication’s exit from the TV industry was behind the quarter’s third largest deal—the sale of its six TV stations to Morgan Murphy Media for $66.6 million.
In the largest deal by number of licenses since 2011, Edge Spectrum paid $72 million to acquire the licenses for 196 low-power TV stations and construction permits to meet the spectrum requirements for its planned nationwide IP broadcasting network, Kagan said.
Meruelo Media’s $82.8 million purchase of KPWR Los Angeles from Emmis Communications was Q2’s top radio deal. The transaction was the largest single radio-station sale since 2012 and represents nearly 34% of the quarter’s $245 million radio deal total, Kagan said.
