WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Gray Media, the Atlanta-based company that owns WECT, has agreed to buy six television stations from American Spirit Media for $50 million, including Wilmington’s Fox affiliate WSFX-TV (channel 26), which WECT has co-managed for years.
The deal, announced July 1, covers stations in six markets across the country. Along with WSFX-TV, the purchase includes Fox affiliates in Toledo, Ohio; Jackson, Mississippi; Columbus, Georgia; and Lake Charles, Louisiana, as well as a CBS affiliate in Wichita Falls, Texas.
Gray has provided back-office services to five of the six stations for more than a decade, and has supplied local news to four of them through its own stations in those markets, including WECT’s longstanding co-management arrangement with WSFX-TV.
Once the deal is fully complete, Gray said it plans to apply its news, sales, and sports strategies across all six markets.
Gray paid $40 million to American Spirit on July 1 to close the first phase of the transaction and begin a limited local management agreement for the stations.
The company said it expects to complete the second and final phase of the deal in the fourth quarter of 2026, pending regulatory approval. The local management agreement will end at that point.
Gray said the acquisition is expected to generate positive cash flow and will not increase the company’s consolidated total net leverage ratio.
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