Malara Broadcast Group of

Sarasota, Florida Sarasota () is a city in and the county seat of Sarasota County, Florida, United States. It is located in Southwest Florida, the southern end of the Tampa Bay area, and north of Fort Myers, Florida, Fort Myers and Punta Gorda, Florida, Punta Gord ...

, a

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...

corporation, also known as Malara Broadcasting, was a broadcasting

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

. Malara Broadcasting was founded in 2004 by Tony Malara, former president of affiliate relations for

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

. Malara owned two television stations:

KDLH KDLH (channel 3) is a television station in Duluth, Minnesota, United States, affiliated with The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Media alongside Superior, Wisconsin–licensed dual NBC/CBS affiliate KBJR-TV, channel 6 (and its Chisholm, Minneso ...

Duluth, Minnesota Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...

and

WPTA WPTA (channel 21) is a television station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC, NBC, and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Gray Media alongside CW+ affiliate WISE-TV (channel 33). The two stations share studios on Butler Ro ...

Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne is a city in Allen County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 at the 2020 census ...

History

On April 23, 2004, Malara Broadcast Group entered into agreements to purchase

and

. This marked Malara's first action as a company. These purchases were completed in early March 2005. On March 8, 2005, Malara Broadcast Group entered into a credit agreement with

Granite Broadcasting Granite Broadcasting LLC is a broadcasting holding company in New York City which owns one television station in the United States, in Syracuse, New York. Granite was founded by W. Don Cornwell and Stuart Beck in 1988,

. This agreement gave Malara Broadcasting $48.5 million and a

revolving credit Revolving credit is a type of credit that does not have a fixed number of payments, in contrast to installment credit. Credit cards are an example of revolving credit used by consumers. Corporate revolving credit facilities are typically used t ...

line of $5 million, which it used to purchase

(from former owner

New Vision Television New Vision Television was a broadcast company based in Los Angeles, California. Throughout its two decade plus history, the company owned or managed over 50 television stations in large and medium-sized markets. History New Vision I Formed ...

) and

, from Granite. In addition to this agreement, Malara also entered into a second agreement with Granite, under which Granite would operate, promote, and sell advertising for the two Malara stations. This is known as a

local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one corporation, company agrees to operate a radio station, radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it ...

. The future of Malara Broadcasting was in doubt given several occurrences stemming from the death of group founder Tony Malara from

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

and a heart attack on August 24, 2006, as well as financial woes of partner Granite Broadcasting which filed for

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...

on December 11, 2006. Both the future of the Granite group and any rulings on who would get control of Malara could have led to massive changes with the company. Granite emerged from bankruptcy in mid-2007 under the control of the

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

-based private equity firm Silver Point Capital, who also controlled

Communications Corporation of America Communications Corporation of America (also known as ComCorp) was a broadcasting company in the United States that owned television stations in smaller markets. The company was headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana. It owned and/or operated 20 st ...

, White Knight Broadcasting and selected Spanish-language stations acquired from

Equity Media Holdings Equity Media Holdings Corporation was a broadcasting company based in Little Rock, Arkansas, that owned and operated television stations across the United States. Prior to March 30, 2007, the company was known as Equity Broadcasting, a name late ...

. Malara Broadcasting filed its financial results to the SEC jointly with Granite, leading many to believe that it was simply a

shell corporation A shell corporation is a company or corporation with no significant assets or operations often formed to obtain financing before beginning business. Shell companies were primarily vehicles for lawfully hiding the identity of their beneficial ...

for Granite. If this were true, Granite and Malara would have been in violation of the FCC's rules on duopolies. FCC regulations do not allow duopolies between two of the four highest-rated stations in a market. Additionally, neither Fort Wayne and Duluth have enough full-power stations to legally permit a duopoly in any case. Fort Wayne and Duluth have only six full-power stations each, and FCC regulations require a market to have eight unique station owners once a duopoly is formed—effectively restricting duopolies to markets with at least nine full-power stations. Similar allegations surround

Cunningham Broadcasting Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation is an owner of broadcast television stations in the United States. The company owns fifteen stations–eight affiliated with Fox, three affiliated with The CW, two affiliated with ABC, and two affiliated with ...

, which many believe is simply a shell for

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair, Inc., doing business as Sinclair Broadcast Group, is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb o ...

. On February 11, 2014, it was announced that, as part of

Quincy Newspapers Quincy Media, Inc., formerly known as Quincy Newspapers, Inc., was a family-owned media company that originated in the newspapers of Quincy, Illinois. The company's history can be traced back to 1835, when the ''Bounty Land Register'' was one of ...

' purchase of several Granite stations, Malara would sell WPTA to Quincy and KDLH to

SagamoreHill Broadcasting SagamoreHill Broadcasting LLC is a privately held American holding company that owns 13 television stations based in the Great Lakes and southern United States regions. The company is a joint venture of the investment firm Duff Ackerman & Goodric ...

. As a result of the deal, Quincy, which is acquiring

KBJR-TV KBJR-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Superior, Wisconsin, United States, serving the Duluth, Minnesota, area as an affiliate of NBC and CBS. It is owned by Gray Media alongside CW+ affiliate KDLH (channel 3). The two stations ...

from Granite in the deal, was to provide services to KDLH, while WPTA was to provide services to

WISE-TV WISE-TV (channel 33) is a television station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, affiliated with The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Media alongside ABC/NBC/MyNetworkTV affiliate WPTA (channel 21). The two stations share studios on Butler Road ...

, which Granite planned to sell to SagamoreHill (currently, WPTA receives services from WISE). SagamoreHill was dropped from the transaction in a November 2014 restructuring of the deal; as a result, Malara would have retained WPTA and KDLH and Quincy would have acquired WISE. Quincy would have continued to provide services to the Malara stations. In July 2015, the deal was reworked again, reverting to the original structure of Quincy acquiring WPTA and KBJR and SagamoreHill acquiring WISE and KDLH. However, the agreements between Quincy and SagamoreHill would be wound down within nine months of the deal's consummation, after which WISE's and KDLH's existing Big Three network affiliations would be moved to subchannels of WPTA and KBJR, respectively, and WISE and KDLH would begin operating independently of WPTA and KBJR as solely

The CW Plus The CW Plus is a secondary national broadcast television broadcast syndication, syndication service feed of The CW, whose controlling stake of 75% is owned by Nexstar Media Group, with Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery holding their ow ...

affiliates. The deal was completed on November 2, 2015; the affiliation switches and the termination of the sharing agreements took effect on August 1, 2016. Quincy would acquire the two CW stations outright in 2018, reuniting them with their former LMA partners.

References

{{reflist

External links

SEC Info - Granite BroadcastingFort Wayne TV TakeoverFort Wayne TV Takeover - The Sequel
Defunct television broadcasting companies of the United States Mass media companies established in 2004 Companies based in Sarasota, Florida 2004 establishments in Florida Gray Media