Private Equity Firm Seeks Cox TV Stations in $3B Deal

By Tom Butts
published

NEW YORK--Apollo Global Management LLC, a private equity firm, is planning on acquiring 14 regional TV stations from Cox Enterprise, according to Reuters.

The deal would the largest for Apollo, which also tried to unsuccessfully acquire stations from Nexstar and Tribune last year.

Apollo is also seeking to acquire local stations from Nexstar worth about $1 billion; stations that Nexstar plan to jettison following Nexstar’s $4.1 billion acquisition of Tribune. Apollo has also agreed to purchase a dozen stations in the rural northwest from Northwest Broadcasting.

Atlanta-based Cox announced last summer that it planned on putting the 14 stations on the block as it tries to diversify its portfolio.

Cox and Apollo are also in discussions for joint venture agreements for Cox’s WSB-TV station in Atlanta.

The agreement could be announced as early as this week. 

Tom Butts
Tom Butts

Tom has covered the broadcast technology market for the past 25 years, including three years handling member communications for the National Association of Broadcasters followed by a year as editor of Video Technology News and DTV Business executive newsletters for Phillips Publishing. In 1999 he launched digitalbroadcasting.com for internet B2B portal Verticalnet. He is also a charter member of the CTA's Academy of Digital TV Pioneers. Since 2001, he has been editor-in-chief of TV Tech (www.tvtech.com), the leading source of news and information on broadcast and related media technology and is a frequent contributor and moderator to the brand’s Tech Leadership events.