Young Broadcasting, LLC

Company type	Private
Traded as	Nasdaq: YBTVA (Until 2009)
Industry	Broadcast and Digital
Founded	1986; 40 years ago (1986)
Founder	Adam Young
Defunct	November 12, 2013 (2013-11-12)
Fate	Merged withMedia General
Successor	Media General Nexstar Media Group
Headquarters	Nashville, Tennessee New York, New York , United States
Key people	Deborah A. McDermott (president / CEO)
Services	Television stations,Digital media,Mobile publishing

Young Broadcasting, LLC was an American media company that owned or operated 12television stations in 10markets with a total U.S. television household coverage of 5.9%. The company was formerly known asYoung Broadcasting Inc. and was the outgrowth of the ad representation firmAdam Young Inc., which was founded in 1944 by Adam Young. Previously apublic company, Young Broadcasting voluntarily declaredChapter 11 bankruptcy on February 13, 2009, to restructure its debts.

On June 24, 2010, the company emerged from bankruptcy asNew Young Broadcasting Holding Co, Inc., shedding $800 million in debt and becoming one of the most financially secure broadcasting companies in the country.^[1] Deborah A. McDermott was named president and CEO of the new company,^[2] in whichStandard General L.P., an Americanhedge fund, maintained acontrolling interest.

On November 12, 2013,privately held Young Broadcasting acquired a controlling interest inMedia General through areverse merger.^[3] Following the merger, the new company was owned 67.5 percent by Young shareholders and 32.5 percent by Media General shareholders.^[4] The newly merged company would continue to operate as Media General with headquarters inRichmond, Virginia and trade on theNew York Stock Exchange.

Young Broadcasting entered station ownership in 1986, when it purchased stations inLansing, Michigan andLa Crosse, Wisconsin (a separate deal in 1988 would see Young acquirea station inRockford, Illinois); Young purchasedKLFY-TV inLafayette, Louisiana in 1988 from Texoma Broadcasters, Inc., and subsequentlyWKRN-TV/Nashville andWTEN/Albany, New York in 1989 fromKnight Ridder.

In May 1992, Young reached an agreement to purchase five television stations fromHouston-basedH&C Communications. The stations includedKPRC-TV (H&C's flagship station) in Houston,KSAT-TV inSan Antonio,WESH inDaytona Beach/Orlando,KVOA-TV inTucson andKCCI-TV inDes Moines.^[5] However, the sale of these stations was cancelled due to Young's failure to obtain financing.^[6]

Young would expand its station roster with the 1994 purchase of three stations –WATE-TV/Knoxville, Tennessee;WRIC-TV/Richmond, Virginia andWBAY-TV/Green Bay, Wisconsin, fromNationwide Communications.Los AngelesindependentKCAL-TV was purchased fromThe Walt Disney Company in 1996 and later sold toViacom in 2002. Also in 1996, Young purchasedKWQC-TV/Davenport, Iowa from Broad Street Television, L.P., andKELO-TV/Sioux Falls, South Dakota from Midcontinent Media, Inc.

In 2000, Young Broadcasting purchasedNBC affiliateKRON-TV/San Francisco, California fromChronicle Publishing Company (the purchase also included a 51% stake in the station's local cable news channelBayTV, which would be shut down in 2001). Fortunes for KRON and its new owners would soon take a sharp decline when NBC chose to affiliate with (and eventually purchase) San Jose-basedKNTV, after an attempt by the network to impose O&O-esque operational requirements and control of the station's schedule upon Young to retain the affiliation, which Young refused. KRON became anindependent station in 2002 and eventually took affiliation withMyNetworkTV in 2006.

The company voluntarily declaredChapter 11 bankruptcy on February 13, 2009, with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.^[7][8] The massive debt load Young incurred from its purchase and ownership of KRON was widely believed to have been a contributing factor to the company's 2009bankruptcy declaration.^[9]

On July 22, 2009, a New York bankruptcy judge approved a plan transferring ownership of Young and its stations to the company's secured lenders (among them Wachovia and Credit Suisse) for $220 million. The plan includedGray Television coming in as an outside party and advise on operations of Young-owned stations in seven markets through December 31, 2012 (although Young still had the final word on the stations' operations, including programming and personnel). The agreement did not include Young's three other stations: KRON-TV/San Francisco, California, WATE-TV/Knoxville, Tennessee, andWLNS-TV/Lansing, Michigan, in which the latter two due to Gray already owning stations in those markets.^[10][11][12] WBAY and KWQC would eventually be purchased by Gray in 2017 as part of spin-off requirements to close the Media General merger withNexstar mentioned below.

On June 24, 2010, emerging from bankruptcy, Young released a statement indicating that the company had transferred from publicly traded status to private ownership by its former senior lenders, shedding "nearly $800 million in debt and millions of dollars of burdensome contracts" during its bankruptcy.^[13][14]

Young invested $25 million in its stations, which led to a major overhaul of news production in 2011, allowing most of the stations to convert their news programming to fullhigh definition (except for KRON-TV, whose newscasts continue to be produced inwidescreenstandard definition). In 2013 Young introduced an editorial philosophy dubbed "One Newsroom", which uses multi-platform publishing systems to quickly distribute content across their broadcast, web, mobile, and social media assets.^[15] Master control automation for its stations and asset management operations were upgraded in 2012.^[16]

In 2011, Young hired Cox Reps to represent it for national sales and announced plans to establish a dedicated Young Broadcasting sales team based in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Adam Young Inc., Young's previous rep firm, ceased operations in February 2011 after Cox was brought on board.^[17]

In January 2012, Young signed an affiliation agreement withThe Walt Disney Company'sLive Well Network for eight of its stations to carry the digital multicast channel (WKRN-TV,WRIC-TV,WTEN,WATE-TV,WBAY-TV,WLNS-TV andKLFY).^[18]

On August 20, 2012,Standard General filed an application with theFederal Communications Commission to receive approval to increase theNew York City-basedhedge fund's ownership stake in Young Broadcasting from 36.34% to a controlling stake of 50.03%.^[19]

On June 6, 2013, Young announced that it would sell itself toMedia General, in a transaction described as a "reverse merger". The enlarged Media General would own 30 stations, reaching 14% of the United States.^[20] On November 8, the FCC approved the merger.^[21] The merger closed on November 12.^[22] Media General would then be absorbed toNexstar Media Group in 2017.^[23] President and CEO Deborah A. McDermott would later become the CEO ofStandard Media in 2018.^[24]

• Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state andcity of license.

• Nexstar Media Group
• Mass media companies established in 1986
• Mass media companies disestablished in 2013
• Defunct television broadcasting companies of the United States
• Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009
• 1986 establishments in New York (state)
• 2013 disestablishments in Tennessee
• 2013 mergers and acquisitions

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