WTVR swapped to Local TV Holdings

The oldest television station in the South now officially belongs to one of the newest media companies in the country.

Local TV Holdings closed on the deal with Raycom yesterday, acquiring the CBS affiliate WTVR from Raycom in exchange for the Birmingham, Ala., Fox affiliate WBRC. Because the Birmingham station is in a larger market than the Richmond station, Raycom is also paying a sum of cash, reported by TVNewsday.com to be $85 million.

The swap gives Local TV, which is based in Fort Wright, Ky., two CBS affiliates less than 100 miles from each other in Virginia; the company also owns WTKR in Norfolk. Meanwhile, the Montgomery, Ala.-based Raycom picks up a station in Birmingham to go with its presence in Montgomery and Huntsville, Ala.

WTVR general manager Peter Maroney said, "It's remarkable that a swap sale like this could happen at all. Other than a fire sale or a sale out of bankruptcy, I can't think of another sale in the last 18 months where both companies walked away happy."

Local TV, which has been in existence for two years, owns 17 stations in 14 states. Raycom owns 46 stations in 18 states.

The sale was mandated when Raycom, which already owned WTVR, acquired the Lincoln Financial Group, which owned WWBT, the NBC affiliate in Richmond. Federal law prohibits one company from owning two stations in the same market, so Raycom was forced to put WTVR up for sale. A deal was struck to sell the station to Sinclair Broadcasting Group for $85 million, but the U.S. Department of Justice rejected that sale without explanation.