Today’s decision of the FCC’s Chairman Ajit Pai to effectively scuttle the Sinclair-Tribune merger by designating it for lengthy administrative hearings, came on the heels of a comment period where a broad coalition of organization across the political spectrum voiced their opposition to the deal.
Newsmax Media, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Free Press, and the American Cable Association all filed statements opposing the proposed $3.9 billion merger.
Newsmax argued the merger plans' divestiture provisions are "sham transactions," contending that the provision would return control over the spun-off stations to the broadcast company despite nominal ownership by another party.
"(Sinclair and Tribune) spend little time rebutting the evidence showing that Sinclair will retain control over the assets being divested to Cunningham and WGN-TV LLC," Newsmax said in its comments to the FCC. "Moreover, even taking into account what they do dispute, they do not disagree that if the commission found that the divestitures to these entities are ineffective – i.e. that Sinclair would retain control of the divested stations – then Sinclair would be in violation of the national audience reach limit."
Law360 reported the merger would have given Sinclair control over broadcast stations reaching about 59 percent of American homes. The ownership limitation, first created by the FCC under President Reagan, set the previous limit at 39 percent.
Last Thursday was the last day for public comment on the merger proposal. Law360 reports that the majority of those commenting opposed the deal.
Media watchdog group Free Press slammed Sinclair’s claims that the deal would be in the public’s interest. "Sinclair once again claims that operational 'efficiencies' and scale will allow it to provide technical upgrades and improve local coverage, but as Free Press made plain in our initial Petition to Deny, these claims are dubious at best," the group said in its comments. "Such efficiencies are often just a euphemism for job cuts, leading to local journalist layoffs to combine multiple competing newsrooms into a single conglomerate."
Meanwhile, Newsmax contended the merger should be put off until a court decides whether the FCC acted properly when the agency reinstated the "UHF discount” for higher-band over-the-air stations. By doing so, it had brought the deal just below the 39 percent limit on national broadcast audience size of a single station owner.
For the merger to proceed, it is considered a necessity for the discount to be upheld, according to Law 360.
Sinclair came under fire earlier this year when dozens of local TV news anchors delivered a speech warning about fake news by reading from a script provided the broadcast group.
Newsmax has not criticized Sinclair’s editorial point of view, but warned that if the FCC had approved the merger, it would have opened the door for networks like ABC, CBS and NBC to dramatically increase the number of stations they own. This, in turn, would give the networks more control over local news coverage.
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