Staff photo by Becky Malewitz
Staff photo by Becky Malewitz
Schurz timeline in South Bend
1872 — Alfred B. Miller and Elmer Crockett start the South Bend Tribune.

1922 — WGAZ radio (now WSBT) in South Bend begins broadcasting out of a corner of the newspaper building.

1952 — WSBT-TV, the nation’s third UHF television station, is launched, Channel 34.

1960 — The first property outside of the region — the Herald-Mail in Hagerstown, Md. — is acquired.

2006 — Atlanta-based Gray Television acquires WNDU from Notre Dame for $85 million.

2008 — Schurz builds a new 83,000-square-foot building at 1301 E. Douglas Road, Mishawaka, to serve as corporate headquarters and home for WSBT and other broadcast stations.

2015 — Gray Television announces a $442.5 million deal to acquire some two dozen TV and radio stations from Schurz.
Schurz Communications, the owner of the South Bend Tribune and WSBT, has agreed to sell its TV and radio stations to Gray Television, the owner of WNDU — a move that acknowledges the realities of the broadcast industry while also promising to alter the local media landscape.

Atlanta-based Gray reached a deal to buy the Schurz properties — two dozen TV and radio stations combined — for $442.5 million. Schurz will retain the South Bend Tribune and its other newspapers, as well as the four cable companies it now owns.

The eventual landing spot for WSBT-TV, however, remains a question mark. Because Gray already owns WNDU in the South Bend market, and to speed up regulatory approval of the deal, it plans to look for another company to acquire WSBT.

Gray will use the opposite strategy in Wichita, Kan. It already operates the ABC affiliate, KAKE-TV, but it will look to sell off that station and retain the Schurz-owned and top-ranked KWCH-TV, the CBS affiliate.

The move by family-owned Schurz to sell its broadcast arm is one that could resonate for years, especially in Michiana, where the company has its headquarters. While the Schurz company began more than 140 years ago with the South Bend Tribune, it launched a local radio station in 1922 and WSBT-TV in 1951, cementing its standing as a media powerhouse in the area.

In addition to WSBT, Schurz in the area currently operates WSBT 960 AM/96.1 FM, Sunny 101.5, New Country 99.9, and Z94.

"The television and radio industries have been experiencing rapid consolidation," Todd Schurz, the company's CEO and president, said in an interview. "We have great stations, we are the market leaders in six of our seven TV markets and all our radio markets. But at the end of the day, we reach 2 percent of the nation. With what’s going on in the ecosystem right now, it becomes increasingly difficult to gain scale, to gain leverage."

For Schurz Communications, he said, “It would be very expensive, very risky and very difficult” to acquire stations to gain the needed scale.

He also acknowledged the difficulty of the decision in South Bend.
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