• by Wayne Friedman , January 4, 2019

U.S. broadcast TV stations' deal-making dollar volume rose from $5.03 billion in 2017 to $8.05 billion in 2018, according to Kagan, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Two major deals contributed to the big increase:

In December, Nexstar Media Group said it would acquire Tribune Media Group for $3.51 billion, according to Kagan estimates, amounting to $46.50 for each share of Tribune Media.

Initial estimates are that Nexstar paid $4.1 billion for Tribune, including debt. The deal is worth $6.4 billion.

The second-biggest broadcast TV station deal was the $3.44 billion merger of Gray Television and Raycom Media for its broadcast assets. The total deal was valued at $3.6 billion.

Another significant deal was from Cordillera Communications, which sold all but one of its TV stations to E.W. Scripps Co. for $521 million.

Adding in $821 million in broadcast radio deals, that total is $8.87 billion in deals -- an increase of 8% compared to 2017.

Radio merger and acquisitions deals amounted to $3.2 billion in 2017.

Last year posted the biggest revenue dollar volume for mergers and acquisitions of TV stations since 2013, when deals totaled $11.4 billion.