Wisconsin native Joseph Denk has been named vice president and general manager of WFRV Green Bay and WJMN Marquette, following the completion of Nexstar's $20 million acquisition of the stations. Born in Madison and raised in Milwaukee, Denk had been GM at the Nexstar-owned Fox affiliate, WQRF Rockford, and Mission Broadcasting's ABC affiliate WTVO.
Denk will continue to report to Tim Busch, executive vice president and co-COO of Nexstar. He replaces Perry Kidder, who ran the stations since 1992.
"Under Joe's leadership, our Rockford operations have performed very well," said Busch. "His years of experience, respect within Nexstar and his Wisconsin roots are all a perfect fit to lead our newly acquired operations in Green Bay and Marquette."
Nexstar had agreed to acquire WFRV and WJMN from an affiliate of Liberty Media Corporation in April. Both are CBS affiliates broadcasting in HD. Nexstar plans to launch local news on WJMN.
"The acquisition brings immediate strategic and financial benefits to Nexstar as it expands and diversifies our station portfolio, is de-leveraging on a debt-to-cash-flow basis and marks our entrée to Wisconsin and Michigan, which complement our existing Midwest operations," said Perry Sook, Nexstar president and CEO. "Under Nexstar's ownership both stations will realize additional retransmission revenues as well as synergistic operating improvements. As such, the purchase price for the two stations is less than five times the average 2010/2011 pro-forma projected cash flow."
