The Tribune Company agreed Monday to purchase 19 television stations from Local TV Holdings across 16 regions for about $2.7 million, including Denver, Cleveland and St. Louis. Tribune adds them to its 23 existing stations as well as its WGN America cable channel.

The move comes during the same month as the Gannett Company’s agreement to buy the Belo Corporation for around $1.5 billion, a deal expected to be completed by the end of 2013.

And the groundswell of local consolidation has continued with Sinclair, which is said to have spent $2 billion acquiring smaller stations over the last year and a half, and is looking for more.

But none of the recent deals are as large as Tribune’s, which may be compensating for a pending decision to sell or spinoff its newspaper holdings, including The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. Seven of the 19 stations from Local TV are Fox affiliates, which when added to Tribune’s existing seven, makes The Tribune Company the largest holder of Fox affiliates. It is also the biggest holder of CW affiliates.

Read the full story at The New York Times.

Brief Take: Even though the television business faces tremendous pressure from new Internet business models, local stations are highly attractive because they take in substantial revenue in the form of fees from the cable and satellite companies that carry the stations. Hence, deals like this one.

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