The E. W. Scripps Company will exercise an option to re-acquire two dozen Ion Television-affiliated stations that were divested to another broadcaster as part of its acquisition of the Ion network several years ago.
In a press release that accompanied the company’s fourth quarter (Q4) and fiscal year 2025 financial earnings report on Wednesday, Scripps executives said returning the Ion affiliates to its ownership would be accretive to the company’s television networks business.
Scripps announced plans to divest 26 TV stations to a Salt Lake City-based company called Inyo Broadcast Holdings in 2021. The move, valued at $45.45 million, was intended to satisfy certain ownership rules imposed by the Federal Communications Commission, which says a broadcaster cannot have direct ownership of local TV stations that reach more than 39 percent of the American viewing audience.
While Inyo Broadcast holds the FCC-issued TV license on paper, Scripps has maintained operational control of the stations, closing regional administrative offices in favor of running the Ion affiliates from its main broadcast center in Cincinnati.
Re-acquiring the stations requires the approval of the FCC, which is currently weighing various contentious proposals that would modify or eliminate certain broadcast TV station rules. Even without that action, Scripps could bring the stations back under its ownership by requesting waivers of the FCC’s ownership rules in each market where the outlets operate.
It isn’t clear when the FCC will act on Scripps’ request to re-acquire the broadcast licenses.
The affected Ion affiliates are located in various markets throughout the country, including Denver, Indianapolis, Honolulu, Buffalo, Boise, Cleveland, Albany, Oklahoma City and Phoenix. In Indianapolis and Cleveland, Inyo holds broadcast licenses for two stations, with the second station affiliated with Scripps-owned multicast network Bounce TV.
On Wednesday, Scripps said it earned $2.15 billion during 2025, down 14 percent. The lower overall revenue was primarily attributed to stronger political advertising income the prior year, which weighed across certain comparative metrics.
Still, there were bright spots in the report: While some broadcasters continue to struggle with weaker core advertising sales, Scripps saw its local core advertising revenue increase 12.2 percent to $165.3 million during the fourth financial quarter (Q4) of the year. Revenue attributed to Scripps’ multicast business clocked in at nearly $200 million.
