Sinclair Broadcasting To Acquire Tennis Channel
January 27 2016 - 5:20PM
Dow Jones News
Sinclair Broadcast Group, the owner of the most TV stations in
the country, said Wednesday it agreed to buy the Tennis Channel for
$350 million, marking the local broadcast TV powerhouse's first
foray into the national cable television market.
The Wall Street Journal had first reported in September that
Sinclair had been in talks for months to buy the closely-held
Tennis Channel, which is majority owned by private equity firms
Apollo Global Management, Bain Capital Ventures, Battery Ventures,
CCMP Capital and Columbia Capital. Satellite broadcasters DirecTV
and Dish Network Corp. also own small stakes in the network.
The current management of the channel, including chief executive
Ken Solomon, would remain intact, according to a person familiar
with the matter.
The deal is a sign of the increasing pressure on independent
cable channels like the Tennis Channel to merge with bigger players
as the pay-TV distributors who carry their programming
consolidate.
It also shows how a new breed of growing local TV station
"supergroups" like Sinclair and Nexstar Broadcasting Group – which
just landed its long-sought-after deal to acquire Media General on
Wednesday – may look to diversify as they bump up against
regulations limiting how many TV stations they can own.
Sinclair owns or operates 164 television stations in 79 markets,
including affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, giving it strong
leverage in negotiations with pay-TV providers for carriage
fees.
This leverage will help expand the footprint of the 12-year-old
Tennis Channel, which to date has largely been relegated to a
sports tier on cable TV services. Already, Sinclair has struck
deals that will increase the channel's reach from roughly 30
million homes to approximately 50 million homes, the company said
Wednesday.
Sinclair's plans to acquire a national cable channel came to
light in August, in the midst of a distribution fight with Dish
Network. In explaining the brief blackout that left 5 million Dish
customers without Sinclair stations, Dish said it had come to terms
with Sinclair on fees to carry its TV stations but the broadcaster
was holding out to get distribution for a cable channel it did not
yet own.
Sinclair signaled its interest in investing in sports television
in 2014 with the formation of American Sports Network, a subsidiary
that syndicates high school and college sports content across both
its owned stations and beyond.
.
Write to Keach Hagey at keach.hagey@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 27, 2016 17:05 ET (22:05 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
DISH Network (NASDAQ:DISH)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
DISH Network (NASDAQ:DISH)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024