FCC's Rosenworcel Concerned Over Trib-Sinclair Deal

A Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission raised questions Thursday about actions the agency has taken under its Republican leadership to facilitate the $3.9 Sinclair-Tribune merger of the nation’s two largest TV broadcasters,according to InsideSources.

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel says she has serious concerns about the transaction that would see Sinclair Broadcast Group, with its reputation for disseminating hard-right news packages to local stations across the U.S., take control of Tribune Media. The merger would let Sinclair control over 130 stations affiliated with the four biggest broadcast networks in the U.S. — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. The stations stretch across more than 100 markets, including 40 of the top 50 in places like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and political battleground states such as North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Jessica Rosenworcel

“I am concerned the commission is gearing up to approve a transaction that will hand a single broadcast company the unprecedented ability to reach more than 70 percent of American households,” Rosenworcel told the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington Thursday. “It hasn’t happened yet. But there are disconcerting signs.”

According to Rosenworcel, those signs include FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s decision to resurrect the ultra-high frequency (UHF) discount — an FCC loophole in Congress’s national broadcasting cap limiting any one company from reaching more than 39 percent of the national audience. The discount allows broadcasters to count only 50 percent of the audience reached by stations broadcasting in UHF, a format considered weak and unreliable when the discount was enacted in the 1980s. The evolution of digital TV technology has eliminated the technological difference, and the Obama administration closed the loophole last year.

Sinclair, the largest owner of broadcast stations in the country, hovered near the cap when rumors swirled in March it may buy Tribune, the second-largest broadcaster. The FCC reinstated the UHF discount a month later, lowering Sinclair’s audience reach on paper to 24 percent and setting the stage for it to buy Tribune. Two weeks later the deal was announced, and if approved, will take Sinclair from 173 stations to 215 and allow it to reach 72 percent of American households.