Scripps to Retain Minneapolis ION Affiliate

After some question about whether it would be part of the merged company, it turns out Minneapolis owned-and-operated ION affiliate KPXM/41.1 (St. Cloud) will not be divested.

An earlier version of Scripps purchase of ION had said that KPXM, along with ION stations in the San Francisco and Philadelphia markets, might be divested to comply with ownership caps if Scripps’ purchase of ION closed before its sale of WPIX (New York) to Nexstar. An amended filing says Scripps now expects the WPIX sale to close before the ION purchase, giving it room under FCC regulations to keep KPXM and the other two stations.

Following the amendment, the FCC approved Scripps’ purchase of ION from an entity controlled by Black Diamond Capital Management for $2.65 billion. Scripps will still divest 23 ION stations, all of them outside of the Upper Midwest, to INYO Broadcast Holdings for $30 million.

Regionally, Scripps will also keep ION stations in the Milwaukee, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, and Wausau markets, creating an NBC-ION duopoly in Milwaukee. Scripps also owns stations in the Green Bay and Omaha markets.

After the merger and divestiture, Scripps will own 108 stations in 76 markets. It says it will be the nation’s largest television broadcaster reaching 73% of households. It complies with the ownership cap of 39% because of the UHF discount, which only counts stations transmitting on UHF as if they reached half of the households in their market.