The seller of the spectrumless license and assets of KBEH Los Angeles to Meruelo Television for $10 million pulls the FCC application seeking approval of the deal after the agency asks for public comment on it. KBEH sold its spectrum in the FCC incentive auction.
DMA 2 : LOS ANGELES
$10M Zombie Station Sale Withdrawn
Without explanation, Hero Licenseco LLC yesterday withdrew its FCC application to sell zombie station KBEH Los Angeles to Meruelo Television, owner of KWHY Los Angeles, for $10 million.
Zombie stations are those that sold their spectrum in the FCC incentive auction, but retain their license with must-carry rights and other valuable assets.
The first of its kind in the wake of the incentive auction, the deal drew special attention from the FCC. It asked for public comment on it in a May 8 public notice.
The filing seeking FCC approval of the transaction also included a channel-sharing agreement under which KBEH would become a tenant on a KWHY subchannel.
However, in a May 17 meeting with FCC officials, representatives of KBEH and KWHY acknowledged that the channel sharing agreement was not the priority.
According to the FCC-required public account of the meeting, the reps said the stations “contemplated a commission grant of the application and closing on the sale of the station [KBEH] prior to implementation of the channel-sharing agreement and therefore the parties had requested consent to assignment of the license of KBEH rather than for consent to channel share.”
BRAND CONNECTIONS
Responding to the FCC’s public notice yesterday, a group of incentive auction winners, newly created zombies, organized as Broadcasters for Free Market License Transactions, charged that the FCC’s review of the KBEH-KWHY deal “was disrupting the allocation of licenses through free-market mechanisms and unnecessarily interfering with the reasonable, commission-driven expectations of licensees that participated in the incentive auction.”
The review has already “stymied” several deals, the group said. “Accordingly, the Media Bureau should quickly remove any uncertainty it has created by promptly processing the [KBEH-KWHY] application on delegated authority.”
As of Thursday morning, it is not yet known how the FCC will proceed in light of the withdrawal of the deal or whether KBEH and KWHY will go ahead with the channel sharing arrangement.
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