An advocacy group that has become the biggest thorn in the side of broadcast television station ownership groups has written to the FCC urging the Carr Commission “to prevent and deter ‘Big Broadcasters’ from evading meaningful FCC review of broadcast transactions.”
The American Television Alliance (ATVA)‘s big beef? Enabling “Big Four” duopolies “at consumers’ expense.”
In a five-page ex parte filing tied to MB Docket No. 22-459, the much-delayed 2022 Quadrennial Regulatory Review, the ATVA presents the following argument: broadcasters have created new “Big Four” duopolies “in a manner that evades FCC scrutiny.”
How so? HWG LLP counsel Michael Nilsson writes on behalf of the ATVA by stating that, in his client’s view, the Commission reviews transfers or assignments of licenses that would create such duopolies. “If, however, a broadcaster first acquires an affiliation from a station, and only later (if at all) acquires the station license that formerly held this affiliation, it can evade this review,” he argues.
That is why the ATVA and its members have argued that the Commission should elaborate a methodology for evaluating combinations of “Big Four” network affiliates, noting, “Only by doing so can the Commission establish a consistent, predictable framework for considering—as it must do—the benefits and harms arising from such combinations, the latter to include higher consumer prices and a loss of local news.”
The narrative of “higher consumer prices” is one driven by DirecTV, in particular, in a series of battles it has attempted to wage at the Commission but with zero success in swaying Republican leadership. Meanwhile, the “loss of local news” is a conversation driven by the elimination of multiple viewpoints; consolidation has led to increased local news coverage and more newscasts in some instances.
At the root of the ex parte filing from ATVA is the Media Bureau’s April 3 approval of two applications from Sinclair Inc. — one involving KMYT-41 in Tulsa and the other linked to WNBW-TV in Gainesville-Ocala.
In each instance, Sinclair obtained a “Big Four” network affiliation from these stations, adding it as a digital multicast offering to a station they already own in the DMA. Then, with the Carr Commission seeking to “modernize” FCC local TV ownership rules and granting waivers in practically every instance, transfer of control applications were filed by Sinclair seeking the purchase of these now-former network affiliates.
For the ATVA, that’s a sly evasion of rules that still exist. “The Commission should put an end to these practices,” the ATVA’s legal counsel concluded. “It should modify its rules in order to ensure proper oversight over such transactions, and to limit the increasingly widespread consolidation in the television marketplace.”
