Fort Wayne's ABC, NBC affiliates set to undergo ownership changes

Business People, Jul 01, 2004

Granite Broadcasting Corporation, owner of WPTA-TV in Fort Wayne, announced it has entered into an agreement with another broadcasting company to sell the station, Fort Wayne's ABC affiliate, while still overseeing the provision of certain services for its new owner.

Under an agreement announced in late spring, Granite will sell WPTA to Malara Broadcasting for $45.9 million. At the same time, the two companies, both based in New York, will enter into a "strategic arrangement" in which Granite will provide advertising sales, promotion and administrative services and selected programming - to the extent allowable by Federal Communications Commission regulations - to certain Malara-owned stations. WPTA and KDLH-TV, a Malara-owned CBS affiliate serving Duluth, Minn.Superior, Wisc., are scheduled to be the first stations to utilize the new arrangement.

Granite also announced it will then purchase WISE-TV, Fort Wayne's NBC affiliate, for $44.2 million from New Vision Television. Granite announced plans to implement the arrangements, pending final FCC approval, as early as third quarter 2004.

"This arrangement is an important step in the implementation of Granite's strategic vision to capitalize on our core strength of operating leading local stations in the nation's small to midsize markets," said W. Don Cornwell, Granite's chairman and CEO. "This arrangement will provide opportunities for substantial operating efficiencies by allowing us to leverage our existing infrastructure to expand the breadth of services provided to our local communities."

Fort Wayne is the nation's 102nd largest media market. Granite operates eight stations across the country, from Fresno, Calif. to Buffalo, N.Y., and reaches a little more than 6 percent of TV households in the United States.