Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Fox May Buy More TV Stations


After announcing a deal to sell about half its TV and entertainment assets to Walt Disney, a report now says 21st Century Fox is mulling a deal to buy more TV stations.

Fox is looking to purchase 10 TV stations from Sinclair Broadcast Group -- in markets including Denver and Seattle, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Fox has 28 stations in 17 markets, representing 37% of the country.

This comes as Sinclair wants to bolster its TV station holdings with a proposed $3.9 billion deal to buy Tribune Media.

Sinclair has been under scrutiny for the deal, in which the combined Tribune TV stations could give the TV group a massive 72% coverage of U.S. TV homes through its stations. Also, a deal to sell off some TV stations could appease federal regulators, per analysts.

Currently, Sinclair has 193 stations in 89 markets, covering nearly 40% of the country.
Fox has said its strategy in making the $52.4 billion Disney deal -- selling off its TV-movie production studios, cable FX Networks group, 30% stake in Hulu and other assets -- is to focus mostly on news and sports programming via its broadcast TV network, TV stations and Fox News Channel/Fox Business cable channels.

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