Granite Broadcasting

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Granite Broadcasting LLC
Company typePrivate
IndustryTelevision
Founded1988; 38 years ago (1988)
Founders
FateAcquired by Quincy Media
SuccessorQuincy Media
Gray Media
Headquarters767 Third Avenue,
New York City, New York
,
United States
Key people
OwnerSilver Point Capital

Granite Broadcasting LLC is a broadcasting holding company in New York City which owns one television station in the United States, in Syracuse, New York. Granite was founded by W. Don Cornwell and Stuart Beck in 1988,[1] and was the first African-American station group in the United States considered to be a "major" station operator (though not the first minority-owned chain, a distinction held by the now-defunct Aleut-owned Cook Inlet Broadcasting).[citation needed]

Granite's chairman/CEO is Peter Markham, with Duane Lammers as COO.[2]

History

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W. Don Cornwell left Goldman Sachs' investment banking department in 1988. He co-founded Granite Broadcasting Corporation with Stuart Beck on February 8, 1988.[3][4] In 1993, it purchased two stations from Meredith Corporation, which included WTVH in Syracuse and KSEE in Fresno for $38 million.[5]

In 1997, Granite purchased television station KOFY-TV for $143.8 million, becoming their largest station purchase.[6] Cornwell was CEO and chairman of Granite until resigning in 2009.[4] During his time with the company, Granite expanded to 23 channels and 11 markets.[1] In April 2006, Granite acquired WBNG-TV in Binghamton from SJL Broadcasting, which was in the process of liquidating most of its broadcasting holdings, which paid $45 million to cost.[7]

Granite declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy[8] on December 11, 2006, mainly due to the complications of the 2006 United States broadcast television realignment which nullified the sales of the group's Detroit and San Francisco The WB affiliates due to those stations being left out of The CW because of CBS Corporation-owned stations in both cities taking the affiliation by default.[9] It emerged from bankruptcy in June 2007, under the control of private equity firm Silver Point Capital (which also acquired ComCorp later that year).

In 2011, it filed a lawsuit against Nexstar Broadcasting Group for having the Fox affiliation to appear on WPTA's digital subchannel after WFFT's removal of it. The suit was settled in 2013, and WFFT reclaimed the Fox affiliation.[10]

In February 2014, Granite reached deals to sell the majority of its stations. WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York and WMYD in Detroit were sold to the E. W. Scripps Company[11] for $110 million (the latter forming a duopoly with Scripps-owned ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV). Most of its remaining stations (mostly in small markets), along with the Malara Broadcast Group's two stations, went to Quincy Newspapers and SagamoreHill Broadcasting (which originally planned to operate the LMA-controlled stations Granite currently provides services to for Quincy).[12][13] SagamoreHill was subsequently withdrawn from the Quincy transaction.[14]

In July 2015, a reworked deal was reached to have SagamoreHill acquire WISE, the SSA between WISE and WPTA (owned by Quincy), and have all of WISE's network affiliations moved to WPTA in exchange for its The CW Plus affiliation within nine months of the closure.[15] On September 15, 2015, the FCC approved the deal,[16] which was completed on November 2.[17]

WTVH, Granite's last station, now serves only as an ATSC 1.0 beacon for the stations of Sinclair Broadcast Group. Sinclair's main Syracuse station WSTM has operated WTVH under a local marketing agreement since 2009; on December 1, 2025, Sinclair moved WTVH's programming to a newly licensed station under its own ownership, WKOF, which operates on the ATSC 3.0 standard, as does WSTM. The remaining video services operating on the WTVH license are two Sinclair-owned digital subchannel networks, Roar and Charge.[18]

Station list

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Current

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Media market Station Channel Owned since Current affiliation
Syracuse, NY WTVH 5 1993[i] Roar

Former

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Stations formerly owned by Granite Broadcasting
Media market State Station Purchased Sold Notes
Fresno California KSEE 1993 2013
San Francisco–San Jose KNTV 1990 2002
KOFY-TV 1998 2018 [a]
Peoria Illinois WEEK-TV 1988 2015
WHOI 2009 2015 [b]
WAOE 1999 2014 [b]
Fort Wayne Indiana WPTA 1989 2005 [c]
WISE-TV 2005 2015
Detroit Michigan WMYD 1997 2014 [d]
Kalamazoo WWMT 1995 1998
Lansing WLAJ 1996 1998
Chisholm Minnesota KRII 2002 2015 [A]
Duluth KBJR-TV 1988 2015
KDLH 2005 2015 [c]
Binghamton New York WBNG-TV 2006 2015
Buffalo WKBW-TV 1995 2014
Austin Texas KEYE-TV 1994 1999 [e]
  1. ^ Known as KBWB from 1998 through 2008.
  2. ^ a b Owned by a third party.
  3. ^ a b Owned by Malara Broadcast Group from 2005 to 2015.
  4. ^ Known as WXON prior to 1997 and as WDWB from 1997 to 2006.
  5. ^ Known as KBVO-TV prior to 1995.
  1. ^ Satellite of KBJR-TV.

Notes

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  1. ^ Owned by Granite and operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

References

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  1. ^ a b Cornwell And Deushane Stepping Down At Granite Broadcasting, Broadcasting & Cable, August 11, 2009, Retrieved October 19, 2018
  2. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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  11. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  12. ^ Scripps Buying Granite TVs in Buffalo, Detroit, TVNewsCheck, Retrieved February 10, 2014
  13. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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  15. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  16. ^ Letter CDBS Public Access, Federal Communications Commission, Retrieved September 15, 2015
  17. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  18. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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