Sinclair Broadcast Group has "agreed to buy" Tribune Media for $3.9B, and Tribune's stable of local sports rights, including the Cubs and Yankees, "should help Sinclair negotiate for even better fees" from the cable operators, according to Edmund Lee of RE/CODE. The Sinclair-Tribune deal could also lead to CBS and Fox attempting to "buy local TV stations in key NFL markets like Green Bay, Dallas, Buffalo, Cincinnati and Houston." What is "interesting to note here is just how valuable local sports rights have become and how it’s helping to keep the legacy TV infrastructure intact." Local sports TV rights remain "one of the few pieces of content that continues to elude online streaming services like YouTube TV, Dish’s Sling, DirecTV Now and Hulu" (RECODE.net, 5/8). In DC, Paul Farhi writes Sinclair "wants to go from big to gigantic." Sinclair "aims to add dozens of big-city stations" -- in Chicago, L.A. and Dallas, among other cities -- to an already "bulging portfolio that includes 173 mostly small-city stations" (WASHINGTON POST, 5/9).
END OF AN ERA? In Chicago, Robert Channick notes Sinclair's deal to buy Tribune would "end local ownership of WGN, the iconic Chicago TV and radio stations." Sinclair's acquisition of Tribune's 42 TV stations and other assets would "make the largest station owner in the country even bigger, pending approval" from the FCC and federal antitrust regulators. In addition to Chicago's WGN-TV and WGN-AM, changes also "would be in store for national cable channel WGN America." Sinclair President & CEO Chris Ripley said that the "most likely markets for FCC-mandated divestitures, if necessary, would be St. Louis, Salt Lake City and Wilkes-Barre, Pa." (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 5/9).
