The FCC on Thursday published its order calling for a hearing on the proposed $3.9 billion Sinclair Broadcast Group acquisition of Tribune Media. Sinclair revised the proposed deal on Wednesday after FCC Chairman Pai expressed concerns over some station spinoffs. To no avail. In today’s order, the FCC said: “Material questions remain because the real party-in-interest issue in this case includes a potential element of misrepresentation or lack of candor that may suggest granting other, related applications by the same party would not be in the public interest.” That could spell big trouble for the station group that goes far beyond the current proposed deal.
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07/20/2018
FCC Accuses Sinclair Of ‘Lack of Candor’
The FCC on Thursday pushed the $3.9 billion Sinclair-Tribune merger to near extinction and put Sinclair’s basic qualifications to be a broadcast licensee into question, unanimously ordering a full-blown hearing to determine whether Sinclair misled the agency in connection with the spin offs of three TV stations.
The hearing before an administrative law judge, the FCC says in its hearing order, is needed to determine whether Sinclair was the “real party in interest” in the companies it was selling the three stations to and, if it was, whether it was guilty of “misrepresentation” and “lack of candor,” perhaps the most serious violation one can commit at the FCC.
The hearing, which would take several months, will likely spell the end of the merger. FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, in a statement, called hearing order “death sentences.”
But the collapse of the merger may not be Sinclair’s biggest concern.
Misrepresentation or lack of candor could have an impact on the overall qualifications of a party to be a broadcast licensee and could lead to a loss of licenses, said one veteran communications attorney.
And such charges don’t go away even if Sinclair withdraws its merger application, he said.
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