Gray Media has finalized the acquisition of nearly a dozen local television stations formerly owned by Allen Media Group, the company announced in a late evening press release on Friday.
The deal includes three TV stations that Gray Media acquired after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the transfer of local TV broadcast licenses from Allen Media in March, and another seven TV stations that followed similar regulatory approvals within the past weeks.
All told, 10 local TV stations were acquired from Allen Media at a cost of $171 million, plus working capital adjustments. Allen Media is likely to use that money to pay down a significant amount of debt associated with its original acquisition of local TV stations in different parts of the country and its operational control of the cable news outlet The Weather Channel.
The stations covered by the deal with Allen Media:
- KADN (Channel 15, Fox & NBC) – Lafayette, Louisiana
- WCOV (Channel 20, Fox) – Montgomery, Alabama
- WAAY (Channel 31, ABC) – Huntsville, Alabama
- WFFT (Channel 55, Fox) – Fort Wayne, Indiana
- WEVV (Channel 44, CBS & Fox) – Evansville, Indiana
- WREX (Channel 13, NBC) – Rockford, Illinois
- WTHI (Channel 10, CBS & Fox) – Terre Haute, Illinois
- WSIL (Channel 3, ABC) – Harrisburg, Illinois
- WTVA (Channel 9, ABC & NBC) – Columbus, Mississippi
- WLFI (Channel 18, CBS) – West Lafayette, Indiana
The three stations acquired in March were WLFA, WTVA and WTHI.
“Six years ago, Allen Media Group began the process of investing over one billion dollars to acquire big four network-affiliated television stations,” Allen said in a statement at the time. “We have received numerous inquiries and written offers for most of our television stations, and now is the time to explore getting a return on this phenomenal investment.”
Gray Media now owns more than 110 local TV stations reaching 37 percent of the country. That includes stations that were acquired through a swap with the E. W. Scripps Company, forming new market duopolies in areas where Gray and Scripps already owned one other outlet.
Earlier this year, Gray Media CEO Hilton Howell, Jr. said he was optimistic that the FCC would pave the way for more acquisitions and consolidation in the broadcast TV space. During a conference call to discuss the company’s year-end financial earnings release for 2025, Howell said Gray Media was monitoring Nexstar Media Group’s $6.2 billion acquisition of peer broadcaster TEGNA to see whether regulators were willing to green-light similar transactions.
“They (Nexstar), like we, believe that consolidation is important for the industry because it is critically important that we maintain local news in all 210 markets across the United States,” Howell said.
Under existing rules, broadcasters are not allowed to own local TV stations that reach more than 39 percent of the American viewing audience. Proponents of media consolidation say those rules are outdated and should be modified or eliminated because streaming services have chipped away at premium TV rights and grabbed advertising dollars away from broadcasters, without making investments in local news or community-oriented programming.
Streaming services are allowed to scale their operations without restraint, the broadcasters complain, while local TV and radio stations are hamstrung by onerous rules that haven’t kept pace with changes in audience consumption habits and advertising budgets.
The FCC is considering proposals to raise or eliminate the broadcast ownership cap and other initiatives like a mandate to transition the country’s local TV stations from the current digital transmission standard to a new one called NextGen TV.
