Raycom Media announces plans to sell 12 TV stations

<p>Raycom Media Inc. plans to sell 12 network-affiliated stations, one of them in Georgia, to more effectively focus on and strengthen its core group in the Southeast and Midwest, the company announced Tuesday.</p><p>Raycom President and CEO Paul McTear said the stations, with more than 800 employees, would likely be valued in excess of $600 million.</p><p>He said the company's August agreement to purchase 15 stations from Liberty Corp. of Greenville, S.C., presented a chance to reassess Raycom's station group. Two Liberty stations, KGBT-TV of Harlingen-McAllen-Brownsville, Texas, and WWAY-TV of Wilmington, N.C., will be sold as soon as the transaction announced in August is consummated, Raycom said in a statement.</p><p>The other 10 television stations to be sold are: WFXL, Albany, Ga.; KASA, Albuquerque-Santa Fe, N.M.; KXRM-KXTU, Colorado Springs, Colo.; WACH, Columbia, S.C.; KTVO, Ottumwa, Ind.-Kirksville, Mo.; WLUC, Marquette, Mich.; WSTM-WSTQ, Syracuse, NY; WNWO, Toledo, Ohio; WPBN-WTOM, Traverse City-Cadillac, Mich.; KWWL, Waterloo-Cedar Rapids-Iowa City-Dubuque, Iowa.</p><p>"The sale of these properties, which either duplicate existing market holdings or lie outside our core geographies, will allow us to strategically reshape our holdings and provide the resources to reinvest in expanding our reach within priority markets," McTear said.</p><p>Raycom, based in Montgomery, operates 37 network-affiliated television stations in 20 states, and has other holdings. Its stations cover more than 10 percent of U.S. television households and employ 2,500 people.</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cd987c)</p>

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