Home  News Local News WTVJ NBC 6 sold to WPLG ABC 10 owners
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WTVJ NBC 6 sold to WPLG ABC 10 owners |
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Written by Dr. Garth A. Rose
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Friday, 25 July 2008 |
A deal reported to have been in the works for sometime was formalized last week when the Washington Post Co. owners of South Florida’s TV station WPLG ABC 10 announced that it is buying another South Florida station, WTVJ-NBC 6 from NBC Universal for an undisclosed amount.
The purchase follows the move in March of this year by WTVJ’s parent company NBC Universal to sell its South Florida affiliate, one of the more popular television stations among the Caribbean population in South Florida.
Although the deal has been finalized, it still, as with most telecommunication deals, requires the approval of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). However, the deal is expected to be approved by the end of the year.
Washington Post will operate both WTVJ and WPLG as a duopoly – two stations controlled and operated by one owner. WTVJ will still broadcast as an NBC affiliate, but its not known if its program line-up will change or what will be the fate of its staff members.
The station employs a number of African American on-air personnel like veterans Julia Yarborough, Willard Sheppard and Trina Robinson, and more recent staffers like Sharon Lawson, Tisha Lewis, Demarco Morgan and Grey Hall. The presence of these African American personalities helped in raising the stations popularity among the Caribbean and African population in South Florida, which according to National Weekly surveys showed high percentage of those ethnicities as regular viewers of the station’s morning, evening and nightly news programs.
WTVJ NBC 6 and the National Weekly had the distinction of sharing the only agreement between a Caribbean community newspaper and a South Florida TV station, in which both media shared news and weather reports and an NBC news staffer wrote for the newspaper.
Efforts by National Weekly to get details of the acquisition from either WTVJ or WPLG was unsuccessful as representatives at both stations said they were not authorized to discuss details until final approval was given by the FCC.
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