Tribune Media Co. Chief Executive Officer Peter Liguori, who moved to refocus the company on its core TV-broadcasting business, is stepping down.

Liguori, who has been CEO since 2013, will also resign from the board of directors following Tribune’s fourth-quarter and full-year earnings release, expected during the first week of March, according to a statement Wednesday. Peter Kern, a board director with 25 years experience as an investor and M&A adviser in media, will serve as interim chief executive while Tribune Media looks for a replacement.

Liguori is leaving the top post about month after he struck a deal to sell Tribune’s Gracenote audio-recognition software business to Nielsen Co. for $560 million.

Noting that deal, Liguori said in the statement that “now is the ideal time for a new leader to steer today’s Tribune.”

The Chicago-based broadcaster, owner of 42 local-TV stations and the WGN America cable network, has been exploring strategic options for almost a year as its competitors consolidate to reduce costs and gain negotiating leverage with cable and satellite-TV companies, which pay fees to rebroadcast local signals to subscribers. Tribune’s stations include affiliates of CBS Corp., Twenty-First Century Fox Inc., Walt Disney Co.’s ABC and Comcast Corp.’s NBC.

Tribune, the largest U.S. operator of broadcast stations by coverage, has been forced to sit on the sidelines in the latest round of media mergers because Federal Communications Commission rules don’t allow broadcasting companies to exceed coverage of 39 percent of U.S. television households. Tribune covers about 44 percent of the population, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence analysis.

The company spun off its newspaper business in 2014, creating Tribune Publishing Co., less than two years after emerging from bankruptcy protection. Tribune Media has minority stakes in the Food Network and in website CareerBuilder, and it owns and manages real estate it values at more than $1 billion. Though the sale to Nielsen includes most of its digital and data business operations, including Gracenote, Tribune retained its ownership of websites Covers.com and ProSportsDaily.com.

Tribune Media is working with executive search firm Korn Ferry to find Liguori’s replacement.