The FCC‘s Media Bureau, led by Holly Saurer, strong believes that the privatization of broadcast TV station owner TEGNA by Soo Kim-led Standard General, with a significant minority non-voting investment from Cox Media Group majority stakeholder Apollo Global Management, presents so many questions and concerns that it issued late Friday a Hearing Designation Order — putting a closing date on ice, at the very least.
It is now known that the hearing process, which makes Administrative Law Judge Jane Hinckley Halprin a key arbiter in a politically charged merger acquisition, is far from what the two Republican Commissioners desire.
In a joint statement, Brendan Carr and Nate Simington addressed Saurer’s decision to designate “certain questions related to the pending applications involving Standard General, TEGNA, and Cox Media Group to the ALJ” by suggesting the decision is in polar opposition to what the Commission should be fostering.
“Hundreds of local newspapers have shut down over the last few years alone,” Carr and Simington said. “This trend is part of a broader decline in the investments necessary to sustain the journalists and reporters that are vital to communities across the country. Many of the nation’s local TV stations are trying to step up and expand their news gathering operations. At this moment, the FCC should be working to encourage more of the
investment necessary for these local broadcasters to innovate and thrive. It does the opposite today.”
The Commissioners added that, “after a protracted, nearly year-long review, the Commission should be providing the parties with a decision on the merits—not an uncertain future.”
This suggests that, even if the ALJ determines that the transaction does not meet regulatory approval, a fifth Commissioner’s affirmative vote may be necessary for the full Commission to affirm the ALJ’s decision. Would that be Gigi Sohn, who Democrats very much believe will be confirmed by the full Senate but could end up recusing herself as the decision involves a broadcast TV company, given Sohn’s past involvement in now-shuttered Locast and her advocacy efforts that involved negative Tweets against FOX News?
That is what some individuals may be wondering across Capitol Hill, even as there is widespread consensus that the ALJ’s docket, which could stretch into 2025, will all but kill the transaction — leaving TEGNA to continue as-is or find another suitor.
As of 10:15am Eastern on Tuesday, TEGNA shares moderated from their steep Friday after-hours decline in value, and were up 5 cents to $17.76.
At stake is the FCC’s approval of a series of transactions that would result in Standard General’s acquisition of 64 full-power TV stations and two full-power radio
stations currently owned and operated by TEGNA.
And, whether or not it transpires could become the bellwether of Holly Saurer’s tenure as Media Bureau Chief. She succeeded Michelle Carey in January 2022, and was formerly Deputy Bureau Chief, an Associate Bureau Chief, and a Senior Legal Advisor and Attorney-Advisor with the Media Bureau’s Policy Division.
To provide a greater sense of her ideology, Saurer previously served as an Acting Media Advisor for Commissioners Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn, and was an International and Consumer Affairs Legal Advisor for former Chairman Tom Wheeler, who brought Title II classification to broadband, later repealed by Commission under Ajit Pai on the grounds that such “net neutrality” rulemaking was improper.
Before joining the FCC, Saurer practiced law at Inside the Beltway firms Drinker Biddle & Reath and Miller & Van Eaton; she holds a Juris Doctor from American University Washington College of Law.
In Twitter correspondence, former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai declined to comment on the hearing designation order when asked by RBR+TVBR.
