WaPo Subsidiary Buys Miami’s NBC Station

By Chris Ariens 

NBC has sold its south Florida station, WTVJ to Post-Newsweek Stations, a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company. NBC bought WTVJ in 1987 for a reported $270 million. NBC was expected to fetch between $350 million and $400 million this time around. This will give Post-Newsweek two network-affiliated stations in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale market, #1 rated WPLG (ABC) and #6 rated WTVJ (NBC), which should help the deal pass FCC muster.

“We are pleased to be able to reach an agreement to purchase such a historic station as WTVJ, the first TV station to broadcast in Florida. We look forward to both WPLG and WTVJ continuing to serve the South Florida community, said Post–Newsweek Stations CEO Alan Frank.

“Post-Newsweek has been a strong affiliate partner of ours for many years,” said NBC Local Media president John Wallace. “We look forward to working with Post-Newsweek as an affiliate owner for many years to come.”

Advertisement

NBC put WTVJ, and its Connecticut station WVIT, up for sale four months ago. Network anchors Katie Couric, Larry King, Rick Sanchez as well as Access Hollywood’s Nancy O’Dell and the late NBC News anchor David Bloom are all WTVJ alum.

> More from Newsblues

> Update: TVNewser has obtained John Wallace’s memo to WTVJ staffers: “We expect the deal to close by the end of the year.” Click continued to read it…


From: Wallace, John
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 10:00 AM
Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT

Today we announced that NBC Universal has signed an agreement with the Post-Newsweek Stations to purchase WTVJ.

Post -Newsweek is a respected broadcasting company that currently owns six local television stations, two of which are already NBC affiliates. They are seasoned broadcasters, who have a solid reputation in the industry and a long-standing commitment to meeting the needs of the South Florida community. We look forward to working with Post-Newsweek as affiliate owners for many years to come.

Now that this announcement has been made, we wanted you to be aware of the next steps in this process. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals, but at this time we don’t anticipate any issues that would affect the closing. We expect the deal to close by the end of the year.

As we mentioned during our visit in March, GE Benefits experts will be coming to the station at some point before the close to help explain how the sale will affect your current GE benefits. We will update you with dates for those visits as soon as we can.

Once again, we thank you for your continued hard work and dedication throughout this process. We will do everything we can to make this transition as smooth as possible and will provide additional information as it becomes available.

Advertisement