Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 20 television stations in 17 markets in the United States. The group's Chair is Nancie Smith, the widow of David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1996 and died in 2011. All but one of Mission's stations are located in markets where

Nexstar Media Group Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...

also owns a station, and all of Mission's stations (including its lone stand-alone station) are managed by Nexstar through shared services and

local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...

seffectively creating duopolies between the top two stations in a market or in markets with too few stations or unique station owners to legally allow duopolies. The company moved its headquarters from Westlake, Ohio, to

Wichita Falls, Texas Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the seat of government of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay, and Wichita counties. Accord ...

, in 2018. The company's stations are based in markets as large as

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and as small as

Grand Junction, Colorado Grand Junction is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 65,560 at the 2020 United States Census, making Grand Junction the 17th mo ...

History

In 1996, Mission Broadcasting was started with its first stations were WUPN in Greensboro and WUXP in

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and th ...

. Both of these were owned by ABRY shareholders, and operated through a SSA by Sullivan Broadcasting, a company affiliated with ABRY Broadcast Partners, which was absorbed into

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...

in 1998. In 2001, Sinclair bought these two stations outright. Another related ABRY-affiliated company Bastet Broadcasting, was absorbed into Mission Broadcasting by 2002. On December 19, 2013, Mission Broadcasting announced it was acquiring

KFQX KFQX, virtual channel 4 ( UHF digital channel 15), is a Fox- affiliated television station licensed to Grand Junction, Colorado, United States, and serving Colorado's Western Slope region. The station is owned by Wichita Falls, Texas–based Mis ...

for $4 million. The sale was approved on February 27, 2017 and finalized on March 31.

2020 acquisitions

On March 30, 2020, Mission agreed to acquire certain assets of KMSS-TV,

KPEJ KPEJ-TV (channel 24) is a television station licensed to Odessa, Texas, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Permian Basin area. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Nexstar Me ...

, and KLJB from

Marshall Broadcasting Group Marshall Broadcasting Group, Inc. was an American television broadcasting company that owned three full power television stations in Iowa, Louisiana and Texas. The company was founded on December 1, 2014 by Pluria Marshall, Jr. All three of its tel ...

for $49 million. The sale was completed on September 1, 2020. On July 13, 2020, Nexstar transferred its option to purchase

WPIX WPIX (channel 11) is a television station in New York City. Owned by Mission Broadcasting, it is operated under a local marketing agreement (LMA) by Nexstar Media Group, making it a ''de facto'' owned-and-operated station and flagship of ...

from E. W. Scripps Company to Mission Broadcasting. Mission exercised the option and announced it was acquiring WPIX for $75 million. Once the transaction closed on December 30, WPIX became Mission's first station in a market without an accompanied Nexstar station, as an outright acquisition of WPIX (which broadcasts on virtual and VHF digital channel 11, and is thus not eligible for a UHF discount) by Nexstar would have caused Nexstar to well exceed the 39 percent market reach cap. On August 7, 2020, Mission announced the purchase of KWBQ and its satellites and KASY-TV from Tamer Media LLC. The sale was completed on November 16. On August 21, 2020, it was reported that Mission would acquire

WLAJ WLAJ (channel 53) is a television station in Lansing, Michigan, United States, affiliated with ABC and The CW Plus. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Nexstar Media Group, owner of CBS affi ...

and

WXXA WXXA-TV (channel 23) is a television station licensed to Albany, New York, United States, serving the Capital District as an affiliate of the Fox network. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting and operated under a shared services agreement (SSA) ...

from

Shield Media Shield Media, LLC was a private American television broadcasting company based in Lafayette, Louisiana. The company's stations were operated by Nexstar Media Group under joint sales and shared services agreements. History The company was founde ...

. The sale was completed on November 23. On August 31, 2020, it was announced that Nexstar executed an option to purchase WNAC-TV in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

for $64,000. The option had been in place since 2003 when LIN TV-owned sister station WPRI-TV. Nexstar is assigning the WNAC license to Mission. The sale was completed on June 16, 2021."Consummation Notice"
''CDBS Public Access'',

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

, 18 June 2021, Retrieved 21 June 2021.

Television stations

Stations are arranged alphabetically by state and by

city of license In American, Canadian, and Mexican broadcasting, a city of license or community of license is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator. In North American b ...

Former Mission stations

References

External links