Barrington Broadcasting Group, LLC was an American mass media and broadcasting company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It owned television stations primarily in middle and small-sized media markets. Barrington owned or operated via duopoly twenty-four television stations, with the potential to reach about 3.4 percent of households in the U.S. It was owned by Pilot Group, a private equity firm.
History Barrington Broadcasting was established in May 2003 by a team of former executives from Benedek Broadcasting. Following Benedek's bankruptcy and subsequent divestiture of all television assets in 2002, K. James Yager, the former President, along with Senior Vice-Presidents Chris Cornelius, Keith Bland, and Mary Flodin, formed a company for medium and small market broadcasting.
The company began operations in January 2004 with its purchases of former Benedek stations WHOI-TV (Peoria, Illinois) and KHQA-TV (Hannibal, Missouri/Quincy, Illinois) along with WEYI-TV in Vienna Township, Michigan. Barrington grew slowly at first, adding five more stations between 2004 and early 2006. A major expansion took place on March 27, 2006, when Raycom Media agreed to sell twelve of its network-affiliated TV stations to Barrington for $262 million.Raycom and Barrington Announce Deal For Twelve Television Stations, businesswire.com, March 27, 2006, Retrieved November 6, 2018. The sale was completed on August 11. In recent years, Barrington had been at the forefront of integrating social media and the internet into their on-air content.
In late 2012, it was announced that Pilot Group had put Barrington up for sale and that both Nexstar Broadcasting Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group were in final talks to acquire the full regiment of stations. On February 28, 2013, Barrington announced that it would sell its stations to Sinclair. The sale was granted FCC approval on November 18.FCC approves sales of three Syracuse TV stations cnyradio.com, Retrieved November 19, 2013 The transaction was formally consummated on November 25.
Former stations Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and city of license.
+ Stations owned by Barrington Broadcasting Media market State Station Purchased Sold Notes Colorado Springs–Pueblo Colorado KXRM-TV 2006 2013 KXTU-LD 2006 2013 Albany Georgia WFXL 2006 2013 Peoria–Bloomington Illinois WHOI 2004 2013 Quincy KHQA-TV 2004 2013 Marquette Michigan WLUC-TV 2006 2013 Saginaw–Bay City–Flint WEYI-TV 2004 2013 WBSF 2004 2013 Sault Ste. Marie, MI WGTQ 2009 2013 WTOM-TV 2006 2013 Traverse City WGTU 2009 2013 WPBN-TV 2006 2013 Columbia–Jefferson City Missouri KRCG 2005 2013 Kirksville KTVO 2006 2013 Clovis New Mexico KVIH-TV 2005 2013 Syracuse New York WSTM-TV 2006 2013 WTVH 2009 2013 WSTQ-LP 2006 2013 Toledo Ohio WNWO-TV 2006 2013 Columbia South Carolina WACH 2006 2013 Florence–Myrtle Beach WPDE-TV 2005 2013 WWMB 2005 2013 Amarillo Texas KVII-TV 2005 2013 Harlingen–McAllen–Brownsville KGBT-TV 2006 2013
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