Tegna

Tegna is in advanced discussions with one of its largest shareholders, Standard General, about a potential buyout at about $24 a share.

Satellite TV provider Dish has reached a deal to bring Tegna’s 64 stations back to its customers after a four-month dispute. Ahead of the Super Bowl and as the Winter Olympics is getting underway, the two companies announced the new deal Friday. The dispute started in October.

Tegna’s Seattle NBC affiliate KING seems to be struggling with keeping its staff safe during the pandemic. A staffer has revealed that COVID-19 cases are occurring at “an alarming rate,” raising questions about the station’s commitment to COVID prevention and the care of its employees.

Standard General and Apollo Global Management are closing in on a roughly $9 billion deal for television station owner Tegna, sources close to the situation say. The buyers and Tegna have cleared what sources saw as the major stumbling block: how much the Standard General-Apollo team would need to pay if the deal takes more than a year to clear the FCC and other regulators.

The station group promotes her from business development manager at its KHOU Houston to succeed the retiring Bruce Cummings.

Tegna on Saturday morning reached an agreement with Verizon Fios on a new retransmission consent contract. Five stations had been pulled on Wednesday, Jan. 5: WUSA Washington (CBS); WPMT York, Pa. (Fox); WVEC Norfolk, Va. (ABC); WGRZ Buffalo, N.Y. (NBC); and WCCW Waterbury, Conn. (CW).

Tegna stations in at least four markets were pulled off Verizon Fios Tuesday evening, with the station group and pay TV operator unable to reach agreement on a new broadcast retransmission consent contract. The blackout involves Tegna stations in Washington, D.C. (CBS affiliate WUSA); Norfolk, Va. (ABC affiliate WVEC); Buffalo, N.Y. (NBC affiliate WGRZ); and Harrisburg, Pa. (Fox affiliate WPMT).

Executives from Fox Corp., Tegna, Sinclair and Bitcentral at least week’s NewsTECHForum said the cloud has become an increasingly important tool for business recovery, even with the caveat that the public cloud can be subject to its own outages.

Verizon Fios subscribers could lose access to programming from TV stations owned by Tegna in a year-end retransmission dispute. A potential blackout would mainly affect Verizon subscribers in the Washington, D.C., market. Tegna’s current agreement with Verizon Fios expires at the end of the year.

Executives and on-air talent from Newsy, Hearst, Fox Owned Stations, Tegna and NBCUniversal Local say the proliferation of digital distribution channels has dramatically accelerated the shape of the news product. The upsides, they say, are many.

Tegna has hit a roadblock in negotiations with suitors who are looking to buy the company in a deal worth $8.4 billion, sources close to the situation say.

Executives from Fox Corp., Sinclair, Tegna and Bitcentral will chart the trajectory of more and more news operations into the cloud or a hybrid cloud environment at TVNewsCheck’s NewsTECHForum on Dec. 14, presented in-person at the New York Hilton and virtually as well. Register here.

Dish Network responded to Tegna’s cross-complaint — and its response to Dish’s earlier legal action — as “meritless and riddled with mischaracterizations and falsehoods.” Satellite-TV provider Dish and Tegna are locked in a retransmission consent battle that has left millions of Dish subscribers without access to the programming on Tegna’s stations since Oct. 6.

Media entrepreneur Byron Allen has raised $10 billion in preferred equity and debt for his bid for station group Tegna, hoping to prevail over a rival offer from investment firms Apollo Global Management and Standard General LP, people familiar with the matter said. The financing is backed by a consortium of 14 banks and 10 investors, including Ares Management Corp., Fortress Investment Group, Oaktree Capital Management and Michael Milken’s family office, one of the sources said.

It charges the satellite provider with bad-faith conduct in retrans negotiations and responds to what it calls Dish’s “false claims.”

Is this article weak, fair, good, or excellent? How are you supposed to know? You haven’t even read it yet. But if I worked for Tegna, I’d be getting that kind of feedback already, while I’m still typing away. It’s a built-in feature called the “story strength meter” that was recently integrated into the company’s proprietary content management system (CMS) called Tegna One.

Execs keep mum on acquisition offers while waxing optimistic about the company’s revenue potential going forward.

The increase to $756 million is driven by record third quarter subscription revenue and advertising and marketing services revenue.

Byron Allen, the 1980s comedian-turned-media-mogul who owns the Weather Channel, is angling to buy a massive chain of TV stations that were formerly owned by the Gannett newspaper giant — and the outcome could make or break his budding business empire, according to some insiders.

“Our substantial free cash flow reflects the continued performance of our business and consistent execution of our long-term strategy,” said Dave Lougee, Tegna president and chief executive officer.

Byron Allen has shored up more investors to back his $23-a-share takeover offer for television broadcaster Tegna Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. The media mogul is seeking $8 billion or more in debt and equity to outbid a consortium that includes private equity giant Apollo Global Management and Standard General, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public. Allen is discussing raising at least $2 billion in preferred equity from Oaktree Capital Group, Fortress Investment Group, the family office of Michael Milken and Ares Management Corp.

Dish Network said it filed a complaint with the FCC charging that Tegna is not negotiating a new retransmission deal in good faith. Tegna stations have been blacked out to Dish‘s satellite TV subscribers since Oct. 7. Tegna called the complaint “utterly baseless and without merit.

Tegna’s stations were blacked out to Dish TV’s 3 million subscribers Wednesday evening after the two companies were unable to reach a new retransmission deal. The blackout affects Dish customers in 53 markets.

The broadcaster is telling the satellite provider’s customers that with an extension to the current carriage agreement set to expire, they could lose access to its stations.

An auction of the Tegna TV station empire has been thrown into doubt as the company has questioned whether a prospective sale to a leading bidder would face antitrust concerns from U.S. regulators.

Hurricane Ida roared into Louisiana on Aug. 16, knocking out power to all of New Orleans. During the storm’s approach, landfall and immediate aftermath, WWL, Tegna’s CBS affiliate there, measured more than 15 million video plays on its YouTube channel alone.

Tegna Inc. said it had received takeover offers after a report that private equity giant Apollo Global Management Inc. and one of the broadcaster’s largest shareholders had made a bid to buy the company.

The New York Post is reporting that Apollo Global Management has teamed with Soo Kim’s Standard General to make an $8 billion binding bid on Tegna Monday. The Apollo-Standard General bid was about $22 a share. Byron Allen was also reportedly considering bidding on Monday.

Can diversifying your sports coverage help you score with new audiences? One TV station group, Tegna, is capitalizing on the excitement generated by college sports by introducing a new podcast that will both expand the company’s digital footprint and promote diversity.

The new app offers on-demand programming from the Quest diginet’s catalog of factual entertainment, science, history and engineering programs, as well as adventure-reality series.

The Tegna NBC affiliate taps Ogas to play a strategic role in supporting and championing diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Not surprisingly, all categories were up over last year, including auto; services; retail; health care; home improvement; entertainment & gambling; insurance, banking & finance; packaged goods; and education,” EVP-CFO Victoria Harker said in the quarterly conference call. “Even categories that continued to face some pressure this quarter — including entertainment, travel & tourism — were up substantially compared to the second quarter of last year.”

The increase to $733 million is driven by record second quarter subscription revenue and advertising and marketing services revenue.

TV station leaders and syndication producers face ever-changing guidance on how and when to bring people back as caution continues to abound and stringent COVID protocols return. Above, on Fox First-Run’s new syndicated show, You Bet Your Life, starring Jay Leno and his former Tonight Show band leader Kevin Eubanks, the live audience of 40-60 people are all vaccinated and masked. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

What’s one thing broadcast journalists can never get enough of? Time. But Stephanie Haney, digital anchor and legal analyst at Tegna-owned Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC, has all the time — and space — she needs.

A Locked On NBA Draft 2021 special, co-produced in partnership with Tegna’s WFAA Dallas on Thursday, July 29, and the Monday, Aug. 2, debut of Locked On HBCU, a podcast fully dedicated to HBCU sports and athletes, are the latest additions to the Tegna podcast.