Standard General to acquire Tegna for $8.6 Billion

[GoldenShine9 1513]

1 hour ago, Adam MadMan said:

And another one: Frank Washington of Crossings TV claims that the merger would "help change the mostly white face of content distribution", and also contends that the other two big buyouts in the past couple of years, Gray/Meredith and Scripps/Ion, went through in far less time.

 

They were much more straightforward though. The former involved stations that largely fit each other cleanly and the latter was involving low-rated stations and creating duopolies that were legal. There are many complications here - hedge funds involved, no clarity on overlapping markets and foreign ownership laws.

[mre29 1537]

Quote

Washington pointed out that Standard General is headed by Soo Kim, a Korean American, so the merger would be the largest-ever TV station purchase by a minority.

 

So the FCC has to be okay with this merger and all its issues just because Soo Kim isn't white? I don't think that's how it works...

 

[MidwestTV 1232]

1 hour ago, mre29 said:

 

So the FCC has to be okay with this merger and all its issues just because Soo Kim isn't white? I don't think that's how it works...

 

Same goes for them saying the merger is great for local TV because it's going to have more women and minorities working for it than anyone.

 

Those are all perfectly good things to strive for, but I don't see how it's relevant. I've yet to see them show any type of plan for how they'll invest in these stations that would make them news gathering or local programming juggernauts. They seem the FCC is more 'woke' than it actually is (which probably isn't a lot).

[ABC 7 Denver 1717]

4 hours ago, MidwestTV said:

Same goes for them saying the merger is great for local TV because it's going to have more women and minorities working for it than anyone.

 

Those are all perfectly good things to strive for, but I don't see how it's relevant. I've yet to see them show any type of plan for how they'll invest in these stations that would make them news gathering or local programming juggernauts. They see the FCC is more 'woke' than it actually is (which probably isn't a lot).

 

To that minority point, there were two organizations vying for TEGNA, both lead by minorities, Soo Kim and Byron Allen. If that's the argument that they are competing with then they are going to lose. On paper, Allen Media has a lot fewer legal questions, hurtles and backroom dealing than Standard does. For that alone, I would not approve the deal.

Edited October 14, 2022 by ABC 7 Denver

[noggi 604]

I think the biggest farce here is that most of the general managers, news directors, GSMs, and marketing directors are all white and mostly male. But hey… whatever 

[ABC 7 Denver 1717]

On 10/13/2022 at 6:12 PM, noggi said:

I think the biggest farce here is that most of the general managers, news directors, GSMs, and marketing directors are all white and mostly male. But hey… whatever 

 

Big white hairy balls rule this town.

Edited October 15, 2022 by ABC 7 Denver

[Adam MadMan 285]

Oh god, here we go...

[nycnewsjunkie 1443]

1 hour ago, Adam MadMan said:

Oh god, here we go...

Because nothing says “trust me, I’m not just a greedy hedge fund manager” than using character assassination to blackmail your opponents. /s

 

I’m no Tegna fanboy, but based on his behavior (and the nature of the purchase), Soo Kim has no business owning TV stations. The broadcast industry will be better off without him if/when this merger fails.

[Gavin M. 94]

On 10/13/2022 at 8:02 PM, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

To that minority point, there were two organizations vying for TEGNA, both lead by minorities, Soo Kim and Byron Allen. If that's the argument that they are competing with then they are going to lose. On paper, Allen Media has a lot fewer legal questions, hurtles and backroom dealing than Standard does. For that alone, I would not approve the deal.

And that’s other thing the Black Caucus (which imo doesn’t really care about black people) wouldn’t

back Byron but did Soo Kim says a lot about them. Byron literally had the investors for Tegna. He briefly put it to the Broncos but ya know what happened. Also black caucus should’ve questioned whether he put more African American GM & NDs.

[GoldenShine9 1513]

1 hour ago, Gavin M. said:

And that’s other thing the Black Caucus (which imo doesn’t really care about black people) wouldn’t

back Byron but did Soo Kim says a lot about them. Byron literally had the investors for Tegna. He briefly put it to the Broncos but ya know what happened. Also black caucus should’ve questioned whether he put more African American GM & NDs.

 

The blackmailing by Soo Kim has been ridiculous. IMO, if they went with the Allen deal, it would be done by now.

 

I can think of a few other paths once the outside date comes:

 

1) Stay with the status quo, but that may be impossible with lawsuit threats.

 

2) Find another option and merge with them, create a new company (presumably as Tegna) with a mix of people and block out Soo Kim. One possibility is acquiring the Hearst stations, have some Hearst people involved in the new company and shove Soo Kim and Standard General (and Apollo) to the curb. Can it be done without hedge funds of any kind though?

 

3) Accept the Allen offer, but they didn't the first time...

[mre29 1537]

*reads the article*

 

Mmmm... Someone's feeling desperate.

 

2 hours ago, GoldenShine9 said:

2) Find another option and merge with them, create a new company (presumably as Tegna) with a mix of people and block out Soo Kim. One possibility is acquiring the Hearst stations, have some Hearst people involved in the new company and shove Soo Kim and Standard General (and Apollo) to the curb. Can it be done without hedge funds of any kind though?

 

Another option: Be acquired by Hearst and also shove Soo Kim and Standard General to the curb. (That said, Tegna may be too big for Hearst to absorb even after divesting stations in conflict markets.)

 

[TheSpeedKing 268]

19 hours ago, mre29 said:

*reads the article*

 

Mmmm... Someone's feeling desperate.

 

 

Another option: Be acquired by Hearst and also shove Soo Kim and Standard General to the curb. (That said, Tegna may be too big for Hearst to absorb even after divesting stations in conflict markets.)

 

Another option: let the networks jointly gobble up Tegna. That way, they can more quickly obsolete the network-affiliate model.

[NowBergen 684]

Just now, TheSpeedKing said:

Another option: let the networks jointly gobble up Tegna. That way, they can more quickly obsolete the network-affiliate model.

 When was the last time a network bought a station (not counting Telemundo)?  ABC, CBS and NBC haven't for many years.  

[mre29 1537]

21 minutes ago, NowBergen said:

 When was the last time a network bought a station (not counting Telemundo)?  ABC, CBS and NBC haven't for many years.  

 

The only Tegna stations I can see any of the networks being interested in are those in the largest markets -- WFAA, KHOU, WUSA, and WXIA.

 

[Megatron81 263]

Soo Kim playing the race card knowing that he isn't going to get TEGNA now which TEGNA should've gone with Byron Allen even know he'd run the TEGNA stations on the cheap. I was surprised that Hearst sold WZZM in the late 90's to TEGNA and I doubt that Hearst wants to buy TEGNA when it goes back on the market.

[DirtyHarry 727]

Day 183 of the 180-day shot clock. I have no love for banksters, especially those who have to bend and twist the law with Olympic-level gymnastics to get what they want.

 

Tegna is based in the imperial capital of the Global American Empire. I'm sure they Tegna people know people in positions of power and those Tegna people have complained loudly about the banksters trying to hoover up everything with their legal contortions.

[bpatrick 73]

The thought occurred to me yesterday: if WXIA and WCNC had to be sold, a group no one here has mentioned is Graham Media.  They're the former Post-Newsweek and I know they own stations in Detroit, Houston, Orlando, San Antonio, Jacksonville, and Roanoke--to be precise, three NBC (Detroit, Houston, Roanoke), one CBS (Orlando), one ABC (San Antonio), and one independent (Jacksonville).  Does anyone think they might be interested in going into Atlanta and/or Charlotte?

[nycnewsjunkie 1443]

1 hour ago, bpatrick said:

The thought occurred to me yesterday: if WXIA and WCNC had to be sold, a group no one here has mentioned is Graham Media.  They're the former Post-Newsweek and I know they own stations in Detroit, Houston, Orlando, San Antonio, Jacksonville, and Roanoke--to be precise, three NBC (Detroit, Houston, Roanoke), one CBS (Orlando), one ABC (San Antonio), and one independent (Jacksonville).  Does anyone think they might be interested in going into Atlanta and/or Charlotte?

No. They’re not interested in the deal happening in the first place. The last thing they need is a Goliath competing against them in Jacksonville. Besides, considering how the deal is essentially stalled, any talk of spin-offs is likely to be a moot point.

[GoldenShine9 1513]

If the deal dies, I can guarantee that Soo Kim will sue Tegna to the moon. 

[nycnewsjunkie 1443]

6 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

If the deal dies, I can guarantee that Soo Kim will sue Tegna to the moon. 

Why would he sue Tegna? They’re not in charge of whether the deal gets approved or not; it’s the DOJ’s call.

[Bananaman 14]

If anything I could imagine Tegna suing Soo Kim a la Tribune and Sinclair. The Tegna board could have legal arsenal that we don’t know about.

[Megatron81 263]

I wonder if when this deal gets to a year if TEGNA will pull out of the deal and sue Soo Kim as Bananaman said what Tribune did in the failed Sinclair merger. Which I was kinda surprised that was still pending once Nexstar got the deal done to own the Tribune TV stations Nexstar got $60 Million and got into Lexington KY buying the Fox TV station in the settlement with Sinclair.

[DirtyHarry 727]

It's easy to root against the bankster here. Standard General will probably just be another low class operation like most of the others. Say what you want about Tegna, but they aren't Nexstar or some of the other notorious names out there.

[PTVNews 194]

4 hours ago, Megatron81 said:

I wonder if when this deal gets to a year if TEGNA will pull out of the deal and sue Soo Kim as Bananaman said what Tribune did in the failed Sinclair merger. 

 

Is one year post merger announcement actually when Tegna can pull out without penalty?

[Adam MadMan 285]

Another group pushes for the deal, this time, the National Federation of Filipino-American Associations.