The fate of WADL-38 in Detroit, which has until June to complete its pending sale to Mission Broadcasting by privately held Adell Broadcasting Corp., continues to look grim for seller Kevin Adell.
The FCC has yet to give its regulatory approval to the $75 million sale of the MyNetwork TV station, announced in May 2023. Now, one of WADL’s minority shareholders is planning a rally to try to sway Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel from making an affirmative decision on the station’s sale.
Horace Sheffield, alongside 14% shareholders in Adell Broadcasting, came together on Monday to express their “profound disappointment” with what they believe is the decision “led by Biden appointee FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel” to delay the station’s license transfer.
Rosenworcel became Chairwoman with the transfer of power from President Trump to President Biden, and returned to the FCC after a brief political tug-of-war thanks to a decision by Trump to do so.
The Sheffield family has held an interest in WADL-38 for more than three decades. And, it released a statement indicating that Rosenworcel’s inaction is “a continuation of the FCC’s historic shortcomings in promoting diversity and accountability.”
Bishop Charles Ellis, representing the faith-based community in metropolitan Detroit, shares this sentiment, and he’s moving forward with organizing a march and rally “across Michigan” designed to unite “Muslim and Arab brothers” as well as Blacks in the region “in a collective show of protest against the FCC’s decision to delay the process.”
The planned demonstrations “reflect a wider call for the FCC to advance its commitment to a diverse and inclusive media landscape,” they say.
Whether or not that will get the FCC to act remains doubtful, as the proposed buyer of WADL-38 is Mission Broadcasting — an entity the Commission believes has ties to Nexstar Media Group that run afoul of its rules, making Nexstar a de facto controlling interest holder in the independently owned group run by Dennis Thatcher that has chosen to have Nexstar operate all of its stations via shared services agreements.
SSAs are allowed under FCC regulatory policy. However, the Commission notes that in all but one market, Mission and Nexstar each have a station. The market that is the exception is New York, where WPIX-11 is operated by Nexstar yet that company does not own a New York station.
An identical situation would come to fruition in Detroit should WADL’s sale proceed.
Some industry observers saw the acquisition of a Marquette, Mich., DMA property from Nexstar Media Group by Ralph Oakley last week as a sign Nexstar could be spinning non-essential properties in a bid to purchase WPIX-11 in New York from Mission. However, sources tell RBR+TVBR that Oakley’s purchase was a “one-off” designed to create a SSA with Morgan Murphy Media. Furthermore, Nexstar does not expect to sell any stations as part of a WPIX resolution plan with the Commission.
If that stance is indeed true, the rallying for WADL’s sale could all be for naught, leaving one option on the table — a LMA of WADL forged between Nexstar and Adell, with no involvement from Mission.
Such an option appears to be off the table, at least for now.
— Reporting from the 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas
