Rincon is Selling Off Their Stations

The revolving door of local television ownership is spinning again, and this time it’s spinning fast enough to make your head hurt. Less than a year after Todd Parkin and his Rincon Broadcasting Group started gobbling up stations from Sinclair, Imagicomm, and Standard Media, they are already checking out of the hotel.

FCC filings reveal that Rincon is selling its portfolio of 11 television stations—including major market players like WHBQ in Memphis and KOKI in Tulsa—to Community News Media for a cool $116.5 million. If the buyer’s name sounds familiar, it should. Community News Media is the affiliate of Soohyung Kim’s Standard Media, the very group that just sold several of these exact stations to Rincon back in February.

It’s the ultimate "never mind" in the world of broadcast M&A. Parkin, a former Bally Sports executive, is essentially handing the keys back to Soo Kim and CEO Deb McDermott just weeks after the original deal closed. The sale includes a mix of Fox, ABC, and CBS affiliates spanning from Providence to Yuma, along with a handful of stations in the Upper Midwest like KLKN in Lincoln and WVTV in Milwaukee.

Industry insiders are already whispering that this isn't the final destination for these stations. Rumors are swirling that Soo Kim—who is still clearly feeling the sting after his multi-billion dollar attempt to buy Tegna was derailed by the feds—might just be holding these for a quick hand-off to Sinclair.

For the folks working in these newsrooms, it’s yet another chapter of "Who Is My Boss This Week?" as the ink on their previous Rincon employee handbooks is barely dry. Whether this deal actually brings stability or just sets the stage for the next round of consolidation is anyone's guess, but in today’s media landscape, the only thing you can count on is that the name on the front of the building is subject to change without notice.