The FCC’s pending media ownership proceedings don’t prevent...
The FCC’s pending media ownership proceedings don’t prevent it from intervening in Sinclair’s proposed buy of New Age Media’s TV stations, said the American Cable Association in comments filed Wednesday (bit.ly/1cbE2gy). Sinclair and other companies have argued that ACA and…
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public interest objections to mergers raise issues that should be hashed out in larger rulemakings rather than in individual transactions (CD Oct 28 p15), but ACA said that’s not the case. “It is well established that the Commission may choose to proceed either by adjudication or rulemaking and need not tackle all instances of a problem associated with particular behavior at one time, but may choose to proceed in a deliberative fashion,” said ACA. Sinclair’s proposed deal, which includes sharing agreements with Cunningham Broadcasting in two Florida markets where Sinclair already owns stations, should be considered by the full commission because it raises “novel” issues, ACA said. The lack of “specific findings” allowing contracts that let stations coordinate retransmission consent negotiation “precisely speaks to the novelty of the issue in this transaction,” said ACA. However, ACA said it doesn’t object to sharing arrangements in general. ACA is challenging only portions of the sharing agreements that show “the contemplated posttransaction behavior of the Applicants in colluding in the sale of their retransmission consent,” said ACA. “The Applicants designed the transaction to attempt to cynically observe the letter of the Commission’s rule,” ACA said.