Swap to Local TV; Tribune ownership; twice-aborted sales to Sinclair
On November 12, 2007, Raycom Media announced its intention to purchase the television broadcasting and production properties of Lincoln Financial Media, including rival WWBT. Because WWBT and WTVR ranked as two of the four highest-rated stations in the Richmond market, FCC rules required one of the stations to be divested. Raycom decided to keep the higher-rated WWBT and sell WTVR to another owner.[6] On June 24, 2008, Hunt Valley, Maryland-based Sinclair Broadcast Group announced its intent to purchase WTVR and sell local Fox affiliate WRLH-TV (channel 35), which it had owned since 1996.[7] However, the Justice Department, under provisions of a consent decree with Raycom Media, denied Raycom permission to sell WTVR-TV to Sinclair in August 2008.[8]
On January 6, 2009, Raycom resolved the ownership issue by trading WBRC, the Fox affiliate for Birmingham and $83 million to Local TV LLC in exchange for WTVR-TV. The transfer closed on March 31, 2009.[9] As a result of the trade, Local TV owned Virginia's two largest CBS affiliates; it already owned WTKR-TV, the CBS affiliate in Norfolk, the market just to the east of Richmond. Local TV added Hampton Roads CW affiliate WGNT in 2010 after buying it from CBS.
For three months after the swap deal was completed, WTVR's website remained in the old Raycom-era format. This changed in late June 2009, a few days after WBRC relaunched its website, when WTVR migrated its website to the Tribune Interactive platform used by the websites of other Local TV-owned stations. As of 2012, Local TV migrated its websites to WordPress.com VIP. On July 1, 2013, Local TV announced that its stations would be acquired by the Tribune Company.[10] The sale was completed on December 27.[11]
On August 21, 2015, WTVR-TV's newsroom was named in honor of Stephanie Rochon, who anchored the weeknight newscasts from 1999 to 2014. Rochon had died that June after a long struggle with cancer.[12][13]
On May 8, 2017, Sinclair entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune.[14] It intended to keep WTVR, selling WRLH and eight other stations to Standard Media Group.[15] The transaction was designated in July 2018 for hearing by an FCC administrative law judge, and Tribune moved to terminate the deal the next month.[16]
