Type Private Website www.citadelltd.com Founded 1982 | Products Broadcast television Founder Philip J. Lombardo | |
Industry Broadcast Television
Television Production Area served United States (Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast) Key people Philip J. Lombardo, Founder/CEO
Ray Cole, President/COO Headquarters Bronxville, New York, United States | ||
Citadel Communications Ltd. is an American private broadcasting company. It is based in Bronxville, New York, and operates 2 full-power television stations, 1 low-power station and a regional 24-hour cable news channel. The company was founded in 1982 by former National Association of Broadcasters joint board chairman and current Broadcasters Foundation of America chairman Phil Lombardo.
Upon completion of the Digital TV transition in 2009, Citadel's stations at that time returned their digital broadcasts to their former analog channel assignments in the VHF spectrum. As a result of poor propagation characteristics for digital TV in the VHF bands, these stations now operate low-power digital fill-in translators in the UHF band to improve coverage in their communities of license. See the digital TV section on the WHBF-TV entry for further information on the Citadel stations' post-transition digital signals.
In February 2009, Phil Lombardo became an investing partner in LDB Media, LLC., owners of the Suncoast News Network, a regional cable news channel in Sarasota, Florida. In January 2014, Lombardo and Citadel purchased a majority interest in the company. As a result, Citadel took over broadcast operations of SNN and integrated the channel with its other stations.
On September 16, 2013, Citadel announced that it would sell WOI-DT, KCAU-TV, and WHBF-TV to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group for $88 million. Nexstar immediately took over the stations' operations through a time brokerage agreement. The deal followed Phil Lombardo's decision to "slow down," as well as a desire by Lynch Entertainment to divest its investments in WOI and WHBF. Citadel continues to own KLKN, WLNE-TV, and its Sarasota properties. On March 5, 2014, the Federal Communications Commission approved the sale of these stations to Nexstar outright and the deal was completed on March 13. KCAU continues to use Citadel's standardized news sets, graphics and logos. In July 2015, Citadel rolled out an updated graphics package on its remaining stations.
Stations
Current Citadel properties include: