The FCC could soon look at strengthening broadcast affiliate stations’ right to preempt network programming, Chairman Brendan Carr told a group of reporters outside an NTCA event Tuesday. In a press conference the same day, President Donald Trump suggested that Carr should take action against ABC.
Sinclair has purchased an 8.2% stake in E.W. Scripps as part of an effort to buy the entire company, Sinclair told the SEC in a filing Monday.
Telecommunications relay service (TRS) companies and consumer groups are mainly supportive of the FCC’s TRS NPRM, and industry attorneys told us it's expected to receive unanimous approval at the agency’s Nov. 20 open meeting. However, consumer groups told us that any rulemaking stemming from the proceeding needs to take legacy users of analog TRS into account.
Several former FCC chairs, commissioners and staffers of both parties have signed a petition from Tech Freedom and Protect Democracy calling on the agency to rescind its broadcast news distortion policy. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has used the policy to perform “extraordinary intrusions” into editorial decision-making, said the petition, signed by former Republican FCC Chairmen Mark Fowler, Alfred Sikes and Dennis Patrick, former Democratic Chairman Tom Wheeler, three Republican ex-commissioners, and several past eighth-floor aides.
Gray Media executives said in a Q3 earnings call Friday that the recent Democratic electoral wins will increase broadcasters' political ad revenue and that the company is waiting on the outcomes of FCC proceedings on ownership rules and pending Gray transactions to provide a clearer picture of the options for mergers and acquisitions. “Things are changing faster than I've ever, ever seen it, and for the first time in the history of our business, we are really operating in the wild, wild West,” said co-CEO Hilton Howell. “No one knows what the rules actually are.”
The broadcast industry is ripe for consolidation and could eventually resolve into just two groups, each the size of the combined Nexstar/Tegna, suggested TV group CEOs from Nexstar and Sinclair on their respective Q3 earnings calls this week. “This level of consolidation would strengthen the industry's financial footing and position broadcasters as more capable competitors to big media and big tech” while preserving news coverage, said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley Wednesday. “I think a good, strong industry needs to have good, strong companies comprising it,” said Nexstar CEO Perry Sook Thursday. “We can't do it all by ourselves.”
A DOJ request last week for additional information about Nexstar's proposed $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna means the transaction will face serious scrutiny at the agency, antitrust attorneys and industry officials told us in interviews. “This is an indication that the deal might not necessarily be in trouble, but that they’ve got plenty of work to do to get it through,” said Bona Law's Steven Cernak.
The federal shutdown is keeping the FCC from processing transfer-of-control applications, but broadcasters are expecting a wave of station deal approvals when it ends, they told us in interviews. Being unable to file paperwork doesn’t delay negotiations, broadcasters told us. “We can’t file anything because nothing’s open right now,” said Circle City Broadcasting CEO DuJuan McCoy, who announced an $83 million deal Tuesday to purchase WRTV Indianapolis (ABC) from E.W. Scripps. “When you're doing deals, you worry about what you can control, and that's signing a deal, negotiating a deal and locking it up.”
The FCC released the draft items for its Nov. 20 open meeting Thursday, including an NPRM on clearing the upper C band, an order undoing the last FCC’s response to the Salt Typhoon attacks, and an NPRM seeking comment on updating telecommunications relay services.
AT&T filed a lawsuit Thursday in Texas against industry ad watchdog the National Advertising Division (NAD) over its attempt to block the company from running ads about T-Mobile’s repeated violations of NAD rules on deceptive ads. “It is one thing for NAD to prove ineffective at stopping deceptive advertising,” said AT&T in a complaint at the U.S. District Court for Northern Texas. “It is quite another for NAD to demand, privately and publicly, that AT&T censor its own truthful statements about T-Mobile’s deceptive advertising history -- that NAD itself disseminated to the public.”