As part of its Q4 2025 earnings report, E.W. Scripps has announced that it is exercising its option to re-acquire 23 ION-affiliated stations for about $54 million.
The stations were divested to INYO Broadcast Holdings in January of 2021 as part of its acquisition of ION so that the deal would comply with Federal Communications Commission ownership caps.
The plan to reacquire them comes at a time when the FCC is signaling that it is open to altering or eliminating ownership caps and several broadcast station groups have announced deals that would require changes or waivers of ownership rules.
Scripps noted that the deal would require FCC approval and that deal would close after FCC approval.
If approved, Scripps said that the ownership of these INYO stations would be immediately accretive to the company’s Network segment profit and margin.
In the Q4 earnings call, Jason Combs, executive vice president and CFO said “the transaction allows us to expand our already sizable spectrum holdings. After close, we will no longer be paying the owner of those stations affiliate fees -- so acquiring these station assets will be immediately accretive to the Scripps Networks division segment profit and margins. We will seek waivers for the transaction under the FCC's current television station ownership rules.”
Later in the call, Combs added that “we had to divest these stations to comply with the FCC rules back in 2021. And with current regulatory environment, we think it's the right time to reacquire them. The ownership of these stations is immediately accretive from the segment profit and a margin perspective, plus we also get some favorable tax benefits. So we have -- this transaction will ultimately relieve a significant onetime tax liability we've been carrying on our balance sheet. So when you kind of put all of that together, it just seemed like the right thing to do.”
