RAINBOW-PUSH RENEWS ITS BATTLE WITH SINCLAIR BCSTG.
The Rainbow-Push Coalition renewed its fight against Sinclair Bcstg. and its effort to create duopolies in several markets. Rainbow-Push filed a petition asking the FCC to deny Sinclair subsidiaries’ applications to transfer licenses from 5 stations currently owned by Cunningham Bcstg. on the ground that the purchases were illegal under current FCC rules. It also asked the Commission to revoke all of the licenses Sinclair or Sinclair subsidiaries already held, alleging the company had engaged in a pattern of ownership fraud.
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Sinclair has long wanted to buy the 5 stations -- WNUV (Ch. 54, WB) Baltimore, WTTE (Ch. 28, Fox) Columbus, O., WTAT-TV (Ch. 24, Fox) Charleston, S.C., WVAH-TV (Ch. 11, Fox) Charleston-Huntington, W.Va., and WRGT-TV (Ch. 45, Fox) Dayton. Sinclair already controls programming for all 5 stations through local marketing agreements (LMAs). Sinclair submitted similar applications seeking FCC approval to buy the stations last year, but the Commission denied them, indicating the purchases would create illegal duopolies under rules that barred stations from owning more than one station in a market where there were fewer than 8 independently owned stations. The agency also dismissed a Rainbow-Push petition to deny the applications. The FCC left open the possibility of Sinclair’s refiling at a later date.
Some of the purchases might have been legal under sweeping, controversial new media ownership rules the FCC adopted this summer, including one allowing a company to own more than one station in a market as long as both were not ranked in the market’s top 4. Shortly after the Commission approved the rules, Sinclair announced it intended to buy several Cunningham stations. But the 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, blocked the new rules from taking effect until it decided whether they were legal. Meanwhile, Congress tentatively has approved legislation that would block a portion of the rules, a measure that drew a veto threat from the White House.
Rainbow-Push argues that that situation leaves Sinclair’s current applications subject to the same rules as the FCC used as grounds to reject last year’s applications. If the Commission acted properly last year, it has no choice but to reject Sinclair’s new applications as repetitive, the coalition said. To the extent Sinclair’s latest applications ask the agency to waive its new ownership rules, Rainbow-Push said granting such waivers would be premature.
Beyond that, the applications present another opportunity for Rainbow-Push to ask the FCC to open an evidentiary hearing on whether Sinclair illegally owns the Cunningham stations, an argument the coalition and other media companies have made on several occasions since 1998. In its latest petition, for example, the coalition contended that the roughly $38 million Sinclair would pay for the 5 stations was far below their market value. It also reiterates arguments that the majority of Cunningham stock was owned by trusts set up by Sinclair Pres. David Smith’s mother, Carolyn Smith, for her grandchildren.
Smith and other Sinclair officials couldn’t be reached for comment last week. -- J.L. Laws