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Standard Media Group LLC
Company type	Private
Industry	Broadcast Television; Television Production; Digital Media;
Founded	2018
Headquarters	Nashville, Tennessee
Area served	United States (Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast)
Key people	Deborah A. McDermott (chief executive officer); Stan Knott (chief operating officer); Andrew C. Carington (chief legal officer); Jim Carr (head of digital media);
Products	Broadcast television; Digital media; Over the Top Television;
Website	www.standardmedia.com

Standard Media Group is an American broadcast and digital media company based in Nashville, Tennessee. Standard Media was founded in 2018 by Deborah A. McDermott, who serves as the company's CEO. Previously, McDermott was the chief operating officer of Media General and CEO-president of Young Broadcasting.

History

Between 2012 and 2017, McDermott and her team led the acquisition of more than 90 television stations and helped grow Young/Media General from a $220 million regional TV group to a nearly $5 billion media company.^[1] In 2017, Media General was acquired by Nexstar Broadcasting Group for $4.6 billion.^[2]

On May 16, 2019, Standard Media announced plans to purchase two ABC-affiliated television stations from Citadel Communications for $83 million.^[3] The stations, WLNE-TV in Providence, Rhode Island and KLKN in Lincoln, Nebraska, have been operated by Citadel since 2011 and 1996 respectively.^[4] ^[5] The company announced the acquisition of Waypoint Media and its affiliated companies in November 2019.^[6] The Waypoint deal collapsed in January 2021.^[7]

In November 2020, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced that they would sell Fox affiliate KBSI and MyNetworkTV affiliate WDKA in Paducah, Kentucky, to Community News Media (a subsidiary of Standard Media) for $28 million, in a transaction that closed in 2021.^[8]

On February 22, 2022, a partnership of Standard General and Apollo announced their intent to acquire Tegna; Apollo will hold non-voting shares in the company. As part of the sale, Standard General will sell Standard Media to Cox Media Group, which will also acquire Tegna's stations in Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, and Austin (including WFAA, KHOU, and KVUE). WFXT in Boston will then be divested to Standard General.^[9]^[10]^[11] The sale was approved by Standard General and Apollo Global Management on May 17, 2022.^[12]^[13] In February 2023, it was confirmed that the deal would be given a hearing before an administrative law judge, which the FCC Commissioner's Board voted to remand the merger review.^[14] The deal was terminated on May 22, 2023.^[15]^[16]

On June 3, 2024, Standard Media and the Chicago Blackhawks, Bulls, and White Sox announced the new regional sports network Chicago Sports Network, which is expected to launch in time for the Blackhawks' and Bulls' 2024–25 season.^[17] It was later confirmed that the network would launch October 1.^[18]

Stations

City of license / Market	Station	Channel TV (RF)	Acquired	Network affiliation
Paducah, Kentucky–Harrisburg, Illinois–Cape Girardeau, Missouri	KBSI	23 (36)	2021	Fox
	WDKA	49 (25)	2021	MyNetworkTV
New Bedford, Massachusetts–Providence, Rhode Island	WLNE-TV	6 (24)	2019	ABC
Lincoln, Nebraska	KLKN	8 (8)	2019	ABC

Chicago Sports Network

On September 15, 2024, Chicago Sports Network announced its over-the-air coverage in the Chicago market through a two-channel lease for the main channel and an overflow channel (both in 1080i high definition) on the digital subcarriers of WJYS (channel 62), a station licensed to Hammond, Indiana, with full-market coverage from the Willis Tower.^[19] The subchannels for CHSN via WJYS require an ATSC tuner that supports the more compact MPEG-4 video codec.^[20] Coverage on Gray Television stations in Rockford and South Bend were announced on October 1.^[21] Coverage on Family Broadcasting Corporation station WHMB in Indianapolis was announced on October 17.^[22] Because the network's coverage area over-the-air outside the Chicago market will conflict with the rights to other teams, it is likely that alternate blackout programming will be transmitted to those stations. For instance, White Sox baseball and Bulls basketball would not be seen on CHSN's Milwaukee and Madison partner due to conflicts with the Milwaukee Brewers and Milwaukee Bucks, and though it has coverage in West Michigan, no game coverage is featured due to the presence of Detroit's own teams, including the Tigers, Pistons and Red Wings.

Mark Lazerus, the Blackhawks beat writer for The Athletic, claimed that CHSN's over-the-air signal via WJYS in Chicago sometimes leaves much to be desired. Lazerus wrote that watching CHSN via channel 62 over-the-air requires an antenna aimed at Willis Tower, and even then the picture quality can be "glitchier than scrambled late-night cable was in the 1980s." Lazerus added that the over-the-air signal is all but unviewable in rainy or windy conditions.^[23]

Chicago Sports Network transmitters
Market	Affiliate	Primary channel	Overflow channel	References
Chicago, Illinois (Hammond, Indiana)	WJYS	62.2	62.3	^[19]
Rockford, Illinois	WSLN	19.3	19.4	^[21]
South Bend, Indiana	WNDU-TV	16.2	16.4	^[21]
Des Moines, Iowa	KDMI	19.3	—	^[19]
Angola, Indiana	WINM (soon)	12.2	—	^[24]
Fort Wayne, Indiana	WEIJ-LD (soon)	38.2	—	^[24]
Cedar Rapids, Iowa	KWKB (soon)	20.5	—	^[24]
Sioux City, Iowa	KMEG	14.5	—	^[19]
Paducah, Kentucky	WDKA (soon)	49.7	—	^[24]
Milwaukee, Wisconsin	WVTV	24.4	—	^[24]
Grand Rapids, Michigan	WWMT	3.4	—	^[24]
Champaign/Springfield, Illinois	TBA
Peoria, Illinois	WHOI	19.4	—	^[24]
Quincy, Illinois	TBA
Indianapolis, Indiana	WHMB-TV	40.2	40.6	^[22]
Madison, Wisconsin	WMTV (soon)	15.7	—	^[24]