Michael D. Murray is the Curators’ Teaching Professor of Media Studies at UMSL and editor of the Encyclopedia of TV News.

The parent companies of KSDK (Channel 5) and KMOV (Channel 4) recently announced plans to merge. So, what does the deal mean for local news in St. Louis, where both companies own competing TV stations?

Michael D. Murray, Curators’ Teaching Professor of Media Studies at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and editor of the Encyclopedia of TV News, recently weighed in on the consolidation with TVNewsCheck.com.

Murray told the TV broadcast trade publication, “These kinds of deals translate poorly in terms of overall news coverage for local communities because they generally boil-down to being more about serving shareholder interests, [with] less dedicated interest in covering local news.”

The plan by Gannett Company to acquire Belo Corp. still needs the approval of Belo shareholders and the Federal Communications Commission. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2013.

The combination would create a broadcast “Super Group,” catapulting Gannett into the nation’s fourth-largest owner of major network affiliates reaching nearly a third of all U.S. households.

Visit TVNewsCheck.com to read the full article.