Tick. Tick. Boom. In just 11 days, the transactions and financing arrangements underlying the proposed acquisition of TEGNA by Standard General — with a significant minority stake held by Cox Media Group’s majority owner, Apollo Global Management, will expire.
For many observers, the deal is all but dead, as the FCC’s Administrative Law Judge on April 27 “suspended” its hearing, convened to answer Media Bureau questions it still had about the deal’s structure and resulting impact on jobs and competition.
For Standard General, led by Soohyung Kim, “momentum” is building for the FCC’s Commissioners and its Chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel, to step in and hold a full Commission vote on the deal before it’s too late. Will that happen?
A meeting held Wednesday at the Commission with TEGNA, Standard General and even its main opponents was designed to bring Soo Kim and Co. closer to getting the FCC to voting on the TEGNA purchase. But, the “Hail Mary” needed to save the transaction from disintegrating likely won’t transpire.
