RELATED: Area Television Stations & Cable options

The Richmond television-station dominoes are falling into place.

If the deal is approved by the Federal Communications Commission, WTVR will be sold to Sinclair Broadcasting Group of Hunt Valley, Md. Because Sinclair already owns WRLH, and federal regulations keep companies from owning two stations in the same market, it will sell the license rights to WRLH to a new company, Carma Broadcasting LLC.

Montgomery, Ala.-based Raycom Media Inc. currently owns WTVR, the CBS affiliate. But it recently bought WWBT, the NBC affiliate, so it had to sell WTVR.

The sale of WTVR is for $85 million. The companies expect it to be completed by the end of the third quarter.

Sinclair Chief Financial Officer David Amy said his company is buying WTVR because "we've been in Richmond for 10 years now with the Fox affiliate [WRLH]. We've had a really great run of business there. We like the market a lot."

Amy said Sinclair will be entering into an outsourcing agreement with Carma to help run the stations. While Carma will own the license to broadcast WRLH, the two stations will combine operations to share some aspects of management, such as insurance expenses. Eventually, WRLH is expected to move into the same building as WTVR.

Sinclair will keep most of WRLH's assets. The license alone for WRLH, which accounts for about 10 percent of the station's worth, Amy said, will be sold to Carma for $4 million.

"I don't know where they're located," Amy said of Carma. "They're a [limited liability company] in Virginia. As far as their address, I don't have their address."

In fact, forms filed with the State Corporation Commission list Carma's address as 1925 Westmoreland St., the same address for WRLH. A search of the FCC database did not yield any information on Carma.

WRLH General Manager Steven Genett is on vacation and could not be contacted for this story.

Amy said WTVR will "at least initially" continue its shared service agreement to continue producing the news for CW affiliate WUPV, and he said the same management teams will be kept in place, as will the stations' news personnel.

Sinclair made the news in 2004 when it ordered its stations nationwide to air a documentary accusing Democratic presidential contender John Kerry of betraying American prisoners during the Vietnam War. The film, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," was broadcast without commercials two weeks before the election.

Media General, parent company of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, briefly owned WTVR in the mid-1990s.