Deals worth just $6.7B

After a busy year in 2018, merger and acquisition activity in the media and telecommunications sector was quiet in the first quarter, according to a report by PwC.

Deals worth $6.7 billion were announced during the quarter, down 82% in the first quarter.

The volume of deals was down 36%, with just 155 transactions agreed to, a two year low.

“Despite this being a relatively quiet quarter from an M&A perspective, make no mistake that established media companies are aggressively planning their next moves while emerging companies are hard at work finding their place in the ever evolving value chain,” said Bart Spiegel, U.S. technology, media & telecommunications deals partner at PwC.

In the quarter, there were no megadeals, which PwC defines as transactions valued at more than $5 billion.

The biggest deal in the quarter was Nexstar’s sale of TV stations to Tegna and E.W. Scripps for a total of $1.25 billion.