Young Broadcasting is set to be auctioned off on July 14 in New York and, as TVNewsday reports, there may be some empty seats at the auction house…
“My sense is they have very short list of people interested,” said a source in the financial community. In fact, according to other industry sources, there are at least three entities interested in obtaining all, or at least a piece, of the bankrupt station group: Local TV LLC, Nexstar Broadcasting Group and Silver Point Capital.
And the same sources speculate that the Young group minus KRON San Francisco could go for between four and seven times cash flow, resetting station values for other troubled station groups. KRON is the one-time NBC affiliate for which Young paid a staggering $823 million in 2000 in what one industry insider has called “the dumbest deal ever done.”
Young CEO Vincent Young envisioned KRON as the company’s crown jewel. But it quickly morphed into a poison apple after NBC pulled its affiliation. Ultimately, it was Young’s inability to sell KRON, coupled with the station’s estimated $15 million in negative cash flow, that dragged the company into bankruptcy in February. More…