Station Deals Fell to $312M in Q1, Says Kagan

By Jon Lafayette
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

Broadcast station merger and acquisition volume fell to the lowest level in more than a year, hitting $311.9 million in the first quarter, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Kagan media research unit.

TV deals accounted for $163 million, down from $222.9 million a year ago. Radio station deal volume dropped to $149 million from $2.597.7 billion a year ago when CBS spun off its radio properties to Entercom.

The total deal volume was the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2016 and one of the four lowest in the past four years.

The total included license transfers required by Sinclair Broadcast Group’s proposed acquisition of Tribune Media. Those included a $60 million deal for WGN-TV in Chicago and a $15 million deal for WPIX-TV in New York.

In the first quarter of 2018 Kagan registered 16 TV deals and 12 radio deals above the million-dollar mark, matching last year's per-quarter average of 28 deals between $1 million and $1million. The just-ended first quarter's total of 107 broadcast deals, compared to 70 in the fourth quarter of 2017,

Jon Lafayette
Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.