New York — Sinclair Broadcast Group is buying Tribune Media for about $3.9bn, a deal made possible after the US Federal Communications Commission voted last month to ease a limit on TV-station ownership in the US.Sinclair will pay $43.50 a share to gain Tribune TV stations in big media markets such as New York, Chicago and Miami, strengthening its hand in negotiations with pay-TV distributors and major broadcast networks such as 21st Century Fox.The marriage of Sinclair and Tribune, two of the largest local TV station owners in the US, creates a US broadcasting behemoth to face down online competitors vying for a piece of the local advertising pie. The deal, expected to be the first in a mergers-and-acquisitions frenzy following an historic airwave auction, sent the shares of Tribune surging as high $43.04 in New York.Fox and Nexstar had also been looking to make the first splash in the broadcasting deals derby by acquiring Tribune. Fox, with funding from Blackstone Group, had been ...
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