Three years ago, a full-power digital TV station located in the heart of New York’s Adirondack Mountains was the subject of a carriage tussle with Comcast.
Eventually, the MVPD withdrew its petition seeking an exemption from a pending market modification for this station, assigned to the Burlington, Vt.-Plattsburgh, N.Y. DMA.
Now, the station is being sold in a “part two” of sorts tied to a Oct. 17 LPTV deal.
The buyer? It’s the publicly traded giant that purchased the market’s CBS affiliate for $29 million in May 2017.
According to an asset purchase agreement filed with the FCC on Oct. 29 and dated Oct. 14, Cross Hill Communications is parting ways with WYCI-DT 40 in Saranac Lake, N.Y.
It’s being dealt to Gray Television, for $1.1 million.
A $75,000 advance payment has been wired to Cross Hill, with $1.025 million due at closing.
There is no broker or finder involved in this deal, which sees Davina Sashkin of Fletcher Heald & Hildreth serve as the legal counsel for Cross Hill and John Feore of Cooley LLP take the role of legal counsel for Gray.
The sale of WYCI to Gray creates a duopoly — but with no fear of a “Top Four” rule waiver request. While WCAX-3 is a dominant station serving Upstate New York and Vermont’s biggest market, WYCI is a Heroes & Icons affiliate and a secondary MyNetwork TV station that wasn’t even on cable TV systems in much of the market until 2017.
That only came after Comcast on Nov. 28, 2016 filed a Motion to Withdraw its Petition for Special Relief in a proceeding that began in the summer months.
As WYCI modified its market to reflect where its studios were located, it would also gain “must-carry” status, given its local broadcast status. Comcast argued that it should be exempt from the “must carry” classification for WYCI, and in late October was given a rare third extension by the FCC to gather the information necessary for “a full and accurate reply” to Cross Hill.
The two parties came to a truce, setting the stage for coverage on Comcast systems in Vermont and Spectrum systems in New York. On New Year’s Day 2018, Dish and DirecTV added WYCI as a local station.
This gave Cross Hill, led by Gregory Uhrin, all of the firepower it needed to attract a potential buyer.
Hints that the party acquiring WYCI would be Gray first surfaced on Oct. 17. That’s when Cross Hill sold to Gray a low-power TV station simulcasting a Manchester, N.H.-based LPTV branded as “YCN,” and featuring programming from the Heroes & Icons digital multicast network.
It just so happens that this same programming has been airing on WYCI.
Gray is grabbing the LPTV, WYCU-LD, for $75,000.
Gray paid $29 million for WCAX in May 2017, acquiring it from the Martin family’s Mt. Mansfield Television. While initial thoughts had WYCU serving as a repeater for WCAX, it now appears that Gray may continue to use it in combination with WYCI.
