Scripps - General Discussion

[Megatron81 343]

Sinclair has offered to buy Scripps at $7 dollars a share Scripps has until Dec, 5 to take the offer or not, is this a hostile takeover? I hope Scripps is begging Gray to be the knight and shining armor and buys them.  

[l_miro 245]

37 minutes ago, Megatron81 said:

Sinclair has offered to buy Scripps at $7 dollars a share Scripps has until Dec, 5 to take the offer or not, is this a hostile takeover? I hope Scripps is begging Gray to be the knight and shining armor and buys them.  

 

It's an attempt by Sinclair. Unless Sinclair knows that there are Scripps family members willing to vote yes and they collectively make up 50.1% of the vote this is likely dead on arrival.

 

The family can legally ignore all investors and do as they please. They have to follow procedures obviously but they don't have to listen to Sinclair or anyone else holding Class-A stock.

 

Scripps has dual-class structure with the family owning 93% of the voting shares. 50.1% is required for this to pass per the Scripps Family Agreement. And those that vote yes can be bought out by other members of the family who do not want to sell.

 

Sinclair's offer is kinda crappy, 70% of the offer is in SBGI stock, that's trading at 12-13 year lows. And any  stock offer like this will likely come with vesting lockups to prevent dumping ie can't sell for 5 years etc meaning Scripps members who vote 'yes' could end up worse than they started.

 

 

 

[NowBergen 924]

The specific quick expiration date is interesting.  Not sure it indicates they have family agreement.  The initial press release gave the impression they do not.

[mre29 1967]

So, how bad's the overlap between the two companies? I know they both own stations in Baltimore, Cincinnati, Nashville, and West Palm Beach, and I'm sure there are others -- and I'm not even accounting for the Ion stations.

 

[nathannah 2792]

42 minutes ago, mre29 said:

So, how bad's the overlap between the two companies? I know they both own stations in Baltimore, Cincinnati, Nashville, and West Palm Beach, and I'm sure there are others -- and I'm not even accounting for the Ion stations.

Thirty years ago, Sinclair tried to file a license challenge to usurp WMAR's license because 'I'm a local gimme the VHF license and McGraw Hill can kick rocks' (didn't work); I swear David Smith has a vendetta against having any competition and is hopeful to see his lifelong dream of WBFF on channel 2 come true even though it's otherwise pointless and he's already ralphed up the Sun into a paper that's just Armstrong Williams's 3am must-run show in print form.

[GoldenShine_10 263]

44 minutes ago, nathannah said:

Thirty years ago, Sinclair tried to file a license challenge to usurp WMAR's license because 'I'm a local gimme the VHF license and McGraw Hill can kick rocks' (didn't work); I swear David Smith has a vendetta against having any competition and is hopeful to see his lifelong dream of WBFF on channel 2 come true even though it's otherwise pointless and he's already ralphed up the Sun into a paper that's just Armstrong Williams's 3am must-run show in print form.

 

Channel 11 would be the big winner in the end...

[l_miro 245]

2 hours ago, NowBergen said:

The specific quick expiration date is interesting.  Not sure it indicates they have family agreement.  The initial press release gave the impression they do not.

 

it looks like a short fuse tactic to pressure the board into acting without giving them enough time to seek other bids. Or, Sinclair knows/guesses the family may be infighting and this would prevent them from ironing out any disagreements, splintering the vote enough to get over the 50.1% hurdle.

 

The board can ignore the bid as they can also be sued for lack "due care" if they accept it without getting bids from Gray or anyone else who might be interested.

 

Imo the offer isn't that good for Scripps family. They control 93.3% of the vote, if they accept, over 60% of what they get will be in SBGI stock that is trading at a 13-year low. With a 3-5 year lockup they could very likely end up worse off by the time they're allowed to cash out

 

 

 

[l_miro 245]

Scripps board voted to insert a temporary poison pill that expires November 26, 2026.

 

aimed at unapproved outsiders who gain 10% or more in Class A shares, cancelling their rights but allowing anyone else to buy SSP at 50% discount.

 

tl;dr Sinclair, or any entity, or Sinclair acting with another shareholder as a 'wolf pack', will get automatically diluted if they go up in ownership from the 9.9% now. If they're already at 10% and gain another 0.1% or more the poison pill is triggered

 

(https://scripps.com/press-releases/scripps-adopts-limited-duration-shareholder-rights-plan/)

[GoldenShine_10 263]

8 hours ago, l_miro said:

Scripps board voted to insert a temporary poison pill that expires November 26, 2026.

 

aimed at unapproved outsiders who gain 10% or more in Class A shares, cancelling their rights but allowing anyone else to buy SSP at 50% discount.

 

tl;dr Sinclair, or any entity, or Sinclair acting with another shareholder as a 'wolf pack', will get automatically diluted if they go up in ownership from the 9.9% now. If they're already at 10% and gain another 0.1% or more the poison pill is triggered

 

(https://scripps.com/press-releases/scripps-adopts-limited-duration-shareholder-rights-plan/)

 

It seems they may be looking at a way to get another company to merge with them to stave off Sinclair?

 

They could try to talk to Tegna and one-up the Nexstar offer as a merger of equals?

[Weeters 2173]

On 11/25/2025 at 2:06 PM, l_miro said:

 

It's an attempt by Sinclair. Unless Sinclair knows that there are Scripps family members willing to vote yes and they collectively make up 50.1% of the vote this is likely dead on arrival.

 

The family can legally ignore all investors and do as they please. They have to follow procedures obviously but they don't have to listen to Sinclair or anyone else holding Class-A stock.

 

Scripps has dual-class structure with the family owning 93% of the voting shares. 50.1% is required for this to pass per the Scripps Family Agreement. And those that vote yes can be bought out by other members of the family who do not want to sell.

 

Sinclair's offer is kinda crappy, 70% of the offer is in SBGI stock, that's trading at 12-13 year lows. And any  stock offer like this will likely come with vesting lockups to prevent dumping ie can't sell for 5 years etc meaning Scripps members who vote 'yes' could end up worse than they started.

Scripps itself is trading near all-time lows, so I'm not sure if that would be a big deterrent to the family wanting to sell.  We're talking about a company that was trading at ~$145 a share in 2004, and $4.42 today. 

 

Frankly, this concept that the family doesn't want to sell seems a bit absurd to me.

 

I said this in the Discord, but I have to assume that Sinclair is aware of something that we're not, and I would presume that something is that some of the "Family Shareholders" want out. The family shares have been diluted between roughly 75 members as of 2021, and I think it is impossible they are all unanimous in agreement on not selling the company.

 

The Family Shares are so diluted at this point, some numbers I've seen shows nobody walking away with more than $8.6 million (at the current stock price) and, in fact, most walk away with far less than that (7 members hold exactly one share, 28 hold less than 200 shares, and the ones with the most all seem to hold somewhere between 200k and 700k "family" shares, according to a document I have found).

 

tl;dr I'm wondering if the internal process for family members to sell shares has already begun, and nobody in the family wants to sink their own money into buying more shares of a declining asset. At some point, those shares can be sold to whomever they want, and the Board can't stop them.

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

I wonder if this branch of the Scripps family is as screwed up as the other half of the family tied to James E. Scripps (brother of E.W. Scripps).  They're the ones tied to Scripps Health, the Scripps Oceanography Institute and were the original Detroit News owners.

 

There was a good American Greed (season 10, Family Fortune Feud) that described how granddaughter and heir Melissa Scripps burned through millions of dollars...

Edited November 27, 2025 by tyrannical bastard

[TVLurker 389]

truly sad to see Scripps of all companies vulnerable to a takeover attempt by a slightly better performing company that it itself is not doing too good either but they did it to themselves.

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

Two more Scripps independents have rebranded, including the OG original KMCI.

 

WACY

KMCI

 

 

EDIT: Out of all the Indies left by Scripps, "KDF-TV", WHDT, WMYD, and WSFL are the lone holdouts without the branding (so too is WSYM.2, but its being traded with Gray Media, so I don't expect it there).

Edited December 1, 2025 by TheRolyPoly

[MidwestTV 1358]

8 hours ago, TheRolyPoly said:

Two more Scripps independents have rebranded, including the OG original KMCI.

 

WACY

KMCI

 

 

EDIT: Out of all the Indies left by Scripps, "KDF-TV", WHDT, WMYD, and WSFL are the lone holdouts without the branding (so too is WSYM.2, but its being traded with Gray Media, so I don't expect it there).

 

"The Spot" with a parallelogram as a logo. Classic. It's actually surprising KMCI kept that old (and better) logo for as long as they did given the rebrands KSHB has had.

[mer764KCTV5 213]

9 hours ago, TheRolyPoly said:

Two more Scripps independents have rebranded, including the OG original KMCI.

 

WACY

KMCI

 

 

EDIT: Out of all the Indies left by Scripps, "KDF-TV", WHDT, WMYD, and WSFL are the lone holdouts without the branding (so too is WSYM.2, but its being traded with Gray Media, so I don't expect it there).

For KMCI-TV, it was a logo rebrand, per se. It didn't stop being "The Spot", in fact, I dunno why Scripps even imported that brand to other media markets.

[mre29 1967]

11 hours ago, TheRolyPoly said:

Two more Scripps independents have rebranded, including the OG original KMCI.

[snip]

 

And for those of you who prefer not having to constantly scroll past ginormous logos...

 

          

 

 

[Megatron81 343]

I wouldn't be surprised if WSYM DT2 when it becomes a Gray TV station becomes Gray Sports Network with syndication on it. Yeah, not surprised that WSYM DT2 isn't getting The Spot branding. 

[rtmclaug 75]

I used to think that WPTV was one of the few bright spots in the Scripps group, if not the ONLY bright spot. However I have serious doubts about them now, with so many people retiring and them getting rid of Chopper 5 (the only news chopper in West Palm Beach). Any Scripps stations worth watching? 

[nathannah 2792]

On 12/1/2025 at 1:05 PM, mre29 said:

 

And for those of you who prefer not having to constantly scroll past ginormous logos...

 

          

 

 

WACY is baffling because they're Appleton licensed and all the market stations brand as "Green Bay/Fox Cities" or vice-versa; I know it's long just been legal fiction back to the WXGZ days, but at least put the COL sub-region in the logo and at least keep standard to everyone else.

 

ETA - Didn't catch a show until tonight, but it looks like WTMJ is the latest to get the 10 p.m. Scrippscast treatment.

Edited December 5, 2025 by nathannah

[l_miro 245]

On 12/3/2025 at 2:38 PM, rtmclaug said:

I used to think that WPTV was one of the few bright spots in the Scripps group, if not the ONLY bright spot. However I have serious doubts about them now, with so many people retiring and them getting rid of Chopper 5 (the only news chopper in West Palm Beach). Any Scripps stations worth watching? 

 

Speaking of WPTV.

 

Scripps sold WPTV's building and the 4.7 acres it sits on at the edge of Clear Lake in WPB to a joint venture between Dolphins owner Stephen Ross' Related companies, Key International and Wexford for $40,000,000 in April 2025. WPTV is leasing back the building and will be moving soon, the site will be redeveloped into... 250-seat mediterranean restaurant, retail and speakeasy. The JV is asking the city for $1.5 million in city funds (12% of the project cost) for rehab assistance. Eventually a luxury condo high-rise will take its place.

 

WPTV moved into the building in 2000, altogether paid $16.9 mil for it, so Scripps will have some scratch left to pay down their debt. Maybe they can move into a warehouse like WPBF 

[Recovering Producer 410]

18 hours ago, l_miro said:

 

Speaking of WPTV.

 

Scripps sold WPTV's building and the 4.7 acres it sits on at the edge of Clear Lake in WPB to a joint venture between Dolphins owner Stephen Ross' Related companies, Key International and Wexford for $40,000,000 in April 2025. WPTV is leasing back the building and will be moving soon, the site will be redeveloped into... 250-seat mediterranean restaurant, retail and speakeasy. The JV is asking the city for $1.5 million in city funds (12% of the project cost) for rehab assistance. Eventually a luxury condo high-rise will take its place.

 

WPTV moved into the building in 2000, altogether paid $16.9 mil for it, so Scripps will have some scratch left to pay down their debt. Maybe they can move into a warehouse like WPBF 

 

I just hope the fictional Good Morning, Miami from the short-lived early 2000s NBC sitcom of the same name that was somehow based out of WPTV's buidling in West Palm Beach is able to find a new home closer to Miami. Or did that get turned into a ScrippsCast too? /s

Edited December 7, 2025 by Recovering Producer
Added link to wikipedia page for Good Morning, Miami sitcom

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

Hopefully with a station like WEWS, they will stay put.  Hopefully they don't cash out 3001 Euclid Avenue to a developer.  Aside from the long-vacant building next to it being converted to apartments, there is little reason for WEWS to move and cash out, especially with all of the history that has taken place there. 

I know they have an Ohio Historical marker for Dorothy Fuldheim.  I believe they have another for "Upbeat" which was an early syndicated music show that originated from WEWS and was hosted by Don Webster.

[nathannah 2792]

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Hopefully with a station like WEWS, they will stay put.  Hopefully they don't cash out 3001 Euclid Avenue to a developer.  Aside from the long-vacant building next to it being converted to apartments, there is little reason for WEWS to move and cash out, especially with all of the history that has taken place there. 

Thankfully for Radio City in Milwaukee the only possible deal is the parks department, and there's no doubt the city woulld immediately force historic status on the building, so good luck to Scripps unloading that (they're literally now in the middle of an area where storage companies overserve the area; the transmitter in their backyard also makes it not so fun to unwind operations there). I would assume the same would be done for WEWS.

[mre29 1967]

So, here's a thought:  Could Sinclair's interest in Scripps actually be interest in *Ion*? They watched Nexstar acquire the CW, realized that was a pretty good idea, spent some time looking into options, and eventually settled on Ion.

 

 

[l_miro 245]

9 hours ago, mre29 said:

So, here's a thought:  Could Sinclair's interest in Scripps actually be interest in *Ion*? They watched Nexstar acquire the CW, realized that was a pretty good idea, spent some time looking into options, and eventually settled on Ion.

 

 

 

Probably not, CW is losing money currently and hoping to become profitable. If you listen to Sinclair, like Nexstar they refer to their TV stations as spectrum, and boast to investors about their spectrum position. Scripps does the same.