There isn’t all that much left on the shelf at Newport Television in the way of stations for sale, and now there’s one less station as Sheldon Galloway’s Shield Media agrees to acquire Fox WXXA in Albany-Schenectady-Troy.
Galloway is an executive with television group White Knight Broadcasting, and is making his first station acquisition. Shield is also said to be on the lookout for further acquisition opportunities.
He is also acquiring a partner to help run it – Shield is also entering into a JSA and an SSA with Young Broadcasting, which will put WXXA into a relationship with Young’s ABC WTEN-TV.
Newport will pick up $19.5M in consideration for the station.
“I look forward to working with the talented people in Albany to develop an operational strategy that continues the outstanding tradition of community service and broadcast excellence at WXXA-TV,” said Galloway.
The de facto pairing of WXXA and WTEN will bring two Big Four affiliates together. The other Big Fours include Hubbard’s NBC WNYT and Sinclair’s CBS WRGB. The Sinclair station has a little sister, CW WCWN.
Newport recently announced the sale of the vast majority of its station portfolio to Cox, Sinclair and Nexstar (along with a handful of partner companies) and is actively pursuing the sale of the remainder. With the Albany station spoken for, that should leave the following:
Fresno-Visalia (55)
* KGPE-TV CBS/Country
Rochester NY (80)
* WHAM-TV ABC/CW
Eugene OR (121)
* KMTR-TV NBC/CW
Bakersfield CA (126)
* KGET-TV NBC/CW
* KKEY-LP Telemundo
