Lincoln ABC-TV Affiliate Sold

Standard Media Group is buying ABC affiliates KLKN/8 (Lincoln) and WLNE/6 (New Bedford-Providence, RI) from Citadel Communications for $83 million.

The stations will be the first for Standard Media, a group headed by industry veteran Deb McDermott. A company by the same name involving McDermott first became known last year when it had a deal to buy spinoffs from the ill-fated Sinclair-Tribune merger, but TVNewsCheck reports that ownership of Standard Media has changed and McDermott is now the owner.

Citadel owns no other network affiliates, having sold stations in Sioux City, Des Moines, and the Quad Cities five years ago.

KLKN is in the extremely unusual situation of having to compete with not one, but two, other ABC affiliates in its own city: Hearst’s KETV (Omaha) is easily received over the air, and Sinclair’s KHGI (Kearney) is available on satellite.

KLKN and KHGI split the ABC affiliation on either end of the sprawling Lincoln-Hastings-Kearney-Grand Island market. The other networks are distributed marketwide: Sinclair’s KFXL-FOX, Gray’s KOLN/KGIN-CBS, and Gray’s KSNB-NBC.