A Petition to Deny, Dismiss or Hold in Abeyence filed with the FCC’s Media Bureau has been dismissed by the bureau’s Video Division. As a result, the transfer of Little Rock’s MeTV affiliate and its low-power sibling can move forward as planned.
In June 2014, KMYA LLC — the former licensee of KMYA-49 in Camden, Ark., a suburb of Little Rock, and KMYA-LP, on Channel 47 in Sheridan, Ark. — agreed to the sell the stations to I-Square Media LLC. The sale closed that September.
In January 2016, I-Square entered into “a binding Letter of Intent” for the sale of the stations to LR Telecasting LLC (LRT).
Two months later, Marshall Media, a 10% interest holder of SSN Funding, formally asked the petition to put a stop to the sale.
Why? “The proposed assignment of the stations, if consummated, [would] result in the ultra vires assignment of the stations for which [I-Square] has no authority,” Marshall Media claimed.
What does that mean?
Marshall Media claimed that during the pendency of the 2014 Application, I-Square on May 9 of that year entered into a separate agreement with Rock City Media LLC.
This deal, Marshall says, was done as “evidenced by the flow of [New Market Tax Credit (NMTC)] funds from Arkansas Capital Corporation and the Heartland Renaissance Fund.” Marshall argues that they wouldn’t have released the NMTC funds to I-Square “without [I-Square’s] certification that it sold the stations to Rock City Media.”
Therefore, it’s Marshall Media’s contention that the 2016 Application “should be denied or dismissed because [I-Square] does not have the requisite authority to seek [Commission consent] for the assignment of the stations’ licenses to LR Telecasting.”
This resulted in an April 2016 Opposition filing from I-Square, which contested Marshall’s petition on procedural grounds. LRT stepped in with a November 2016 submission of comments seeking dismissal of Marshall’s petition.
At the end of the day, the Video Division ruled, “despite the private contractual dispute,” granting the application for the transfer of the stations’ licenses “would be in the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
The Video Division added, “Marshall Media’s informal objection fails to meet part one of the Commission’s two-part test because it did not provide the Division with specific allegations of fact sufficient to show that granting the application would be prima facie inconsistent with the public interest.”
RBR+TVBR
