Newport Television, LLC was a television station holding company founded by Providence Equity Partners and Sandy DiPasquale in 2007 to acquire the television stations owned by Clear Channel Communications.

History In September 2007, Newport agreed to sell KFTY and KVOS-TV to LK Station Group LLC for $26.6 million. The deal was set to be completed in March 2008 but eventually collapsed due to LK's lender refusing to provide the funding;Bid to Seal Records in $2.5 Billion Lawsuit Rejected KFTY (now KEMO-TV) and KVOS have since been sold to other companies. As of October 10, 2007, Newport had agreed to sell KION-TV, KMUV-LP, K44DN, KKFX-CA, KCOY-TV to Cowles Publishing Company for $41 million. Newport's purchase of the Clear Channel stations and those being resold were granted conditional Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval, subject to divestitures of media properties owned by other affiliates of Providence Equity Partners in several other markets. The entire deal closed on March 14, 2008, after several stations, in addition to those being divested by Newport, were placed into trust companies.

In March 2012, Providence Equity Partners began to explore strategic alternatives for Newport Television, which may lead to a sale of the group. In July 2012, it was officially confirmed that Nexstar Broadcasting Group would acquire twelve of Newport's stations, Sinclair Broadcast Group would acquire six, and Cox Media Group would acquire four. As part of the same deal, Newport's CMS operations, branded as Inergize Digital, would go to Nexstar. This deal was followed eight days later by the announcement that WXXA-TV in Albany, New York would be sold to Shield Media, LLC, who would then enter into joint sales and shared services agreements with Young Broadcasting's WTEN.Shield Buying Newport's WXXA For $19.4M, TVNewsCheck, July 27, 2012.

Four other Newport stations were not part of either of the July 2012 deals, with the company continuing to pursue buyers for those stations;"Newport Sells 22 Stations for $1 Billion," from TVNewsCheck, July 19, 2012 Nexstar would announce its acquisition of two of those stations, KGET-TV in Bakersfield, California and KGPE in Fresno, on November 5. On November 26, Newport announced that KMTR would be sold to Fisher Communications. Because Fisher already owned KVAL-TV, Fisher assigned the rights to acquire the FCC license to Roberts Media, LLC (a company wholly unrelated to the bankrupt Roberts Broadcasting), which Fisher then entered into a Joint Sales and Shared Services Agreement with KVAL.Fisher Communications (FSCI) Unit to Acquire KMTR(TV) in $8.5M Deal Street Insider, November 26, 2012

On October 23, the FCC granted approval to the sale of the Jacksonville and Tulsa stations to Cox, plus the Albany station to Shield Media. This was followed the next day by the FCC approval of the July sale of the stations to Nexstar except for the two in Little Rock being sold to Mission Broadcasting, which were later approved on December 10. On November 19, the FCC granted approval of the remaining stations from the July deal to Sinclair.

Nineteen of the stations involved in the July deal were consummated on December 3, 2012. On the same day, Sinclair announced that they would acquire non-license assets of WHAM-TV, while the license was transferred to Deerfield Media. On January 23, 2013, the FCC granted approvals of the Newport California stations to Nexstar; and on January 30, the FCC granted approval to the WHAM transaction to Sinclair. On April 24, 2013, the FCC granted its approval on Newport's final station, KMTR to Roberts Media. This was after an announcement that Fisher was being sold to Sinclair for $373 million, two weeks prior. On June 1, the KMTR sale was consummated, completing the disestablishment of the company.CDBS Print. Licensing.fcc.gov. Retrieved on August 16, 2013.

Former stations Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and city of license.

+ Stations owned by Newport Television Media market State Station Purchased Sold Notes Mobile Alabama WPMI-TV 2008 2012 WJTC 2008 2012 Fairbanks Alaska KTVF 2008 2012 Little Rock Arkansas KLRT-TV 2008 2013 KASN 2008 2013 Bakersfield California KGET-TV 2008 2013 KKEY-LP 2008 2013 Fresno KGPE 2008 2013 Monterey–Salinas KION-TV 2008 2008 KCBA 2008 2008 KMUV-LP 2008 2008 San Francisco KFTY 2008 2011 Santa Maria KCOY-TV 2008 2008 KKFX-CA 2008 2008 Jacksonville Florida WAWS 2008 2012 WTEV-TV 2008 2012 Hoisington Kansas KOCW 2008 2012 Salina KAAS 2008 2012 Wichita KSAS-TV 2008 2012 KMTW 2008 2012 Albany–Schenectady New York WXXA-TV 2008 2012 Binghamton WBGH-CA 2008 2012 WIVT 2008 2012 Elmira WETM-TV 2008 2012 Rochester WHAM-TV 2008 2013 Syracuse WSYR-TV 2008 2012 Watertown WWTI 2008 2012 Cincinnati Ohio WKRC-TV 2008 2012 Tulsa Oklahoma KOKI-TV 2008 2012 KMYT-TV 2008 2012 Coos Bay Oregon KMCB 2008 2013 Eugene KMTR 2008 2013 Roseburg KTCW 2008 2013 Harrisburg Pennsylvania WHP-TV 2008 2012 WLYH-TV 2008 2012 Jackson Tennessee WJKT 2008 2012 Memphis WPTY-TV 2008 2012 WLMT 2008 2012 San Antonio Texas WOAI-TV 2008 2012 Salt Lake City Utah KTVX 2008 2012 KUCW 2008 2012 Bellingham Washington KVOS-TV 2008 2012

Variety Television Network

Variety Television Network (also referred to as VTV or the Variety Channel) was a digital subchannel operated by Newport Television on various US DTV stations including 6 owned by Clear Channel; The network went off the air in early January 2009.

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