Waive of the present

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The sale of KPXJ-TV Minden LA, serving the Shreveport LA DMA, will be allowed to go through by the FCC on virtue of a failed station waiver. The buyer of the CW affiliate owns the local ABC affiliate, KTBS-TV. The deal is somewhat of a family affair, and changes on the ground figure to be barely noticeable, if at all.


KTBS Inc., headed by Edwin N. Wray and Lois Wray Rowe among others, is the buyer, and the seller is Minden Television Company LLC, headed at arms-length by another member of the Wray family, Lauren Wray Ostendorff. The price is almost $10.31M.

The reason the combination will barely be noticeable to locals is that the duo has been in a JSA/SSA since 2004.

The Wrays hired Paramount Media Advisors to shop KPXJ-TV. It’s president, Brian Byrnes, said his firm contacted over 30 potential buyers for the station, most of them in similar sized markets and operating CW affiliates themselves. Only one expressed enough interest to sign a non-disclosure agreement and receive detailed information on the property. After receiving the info, that buyer declined to make an offer.

The buyers were also able to show that the station’s audience was low and that it was losing money.

Taking all factors into consideration, the FCC granted the failing station waiver – it’s preferable to two operating stations in a television station duopoly than to have one big four affiliate and one defunct, bankrupt, dark station across town.