WLOV-TV, which serves the Tupelo DMA from its perch in West Point MS, is already in an LMA with WTVA Inc., licensee of WTVA-TV. Although that will not change, the licensee of the station will.
It’s being sold by John R. Lingard’s Lingard Broadcasting Corporation.
The buyer is Tupelo Broadcasting Inc., headed by Matthew M. Dee.
The price will be $500K cash.
Tupelo is one of those smaller DMAs where one either one licensee will have control of at least two of the Big Four networks, or they won’t all be present in the DMA – that’s because there are only three stations there.
WLOV is the Fox affiliate, and also carries programming from MeTV and This Network
WTVA, headed by Jane Spain, carries both NBC and ABC programming.
The JSSA (joint sales and services agreement) provides WLOV’s licensee with a 70% cut of net advertising income, a proportional share of retransmission consent income and a base payment of $200K annually.
At its own expense, WTVA also provides accounting and bookkeeping service, advertising production, traffic, engineering, creative services, general administration and master control personnel, office and studio space, news programming, community relations services and public affairs programming.
The other Big Four Network in Tupelo is carried on Morris Multimedia’s WCBI-TV, and as is the custom in the market, it carries more than that – the station provides CBS, MNT and CW programming to Tupelo.
