Sinclair Broadcast To Buy Allbritton TV Stations For $985 Mln - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBGI) has agreed to acquire the stock of Perpetual Corp. and the equity stake of Charleston Television, LLC, both held and controlled by the Allbritton family, for an aggregate purchase price of $985.0 million. The Allbritton stations comprise seven ABC Network affiliates, including 4.9% of the U.S. TV households, and NewsChannel 8, a 24-hour cable/satellite news network covering the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.

The transaction is expected to close and fund in the fourth quarter of 2013. The firm also expects to fund the purchase price at closing through a bank loan and/or by accessing the capital markets.

To comply with FCC local television ownership rules, Sinclair expects to sell the license and certain related assets of its existing stations in Birmingham, AL - WABM (MNT) and WTTO (CW), Harrisburg/Lancaster/Lebanon/York, PA - WHP (CBS), and Charleston, SC - WMMP (MNT) and to provide sales and other non-programming support services to each of these stations as per customary shared services and joint sales agreements.

Further, Sinclair Broadcast would buy Allbritton's NewsChannel 8, the region's only 24-hour local cable/satellite news network dedicated to covering news, weather, sports and local information to more than 2 million households in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.