Public interest watchdog groups held a lobbying session at the FCC earlier this month, making a case for barring joint sales and shared services agreements in which the stations share management or in which one of the stations in the combo sells 15% or more of the advertising time of the other.
In joint comments, Free Press, Common Cause, the Institute for Public Representation, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ Inc., NABET-CWA and The Newspaper Guild-CWA say the FCC should deny the proposed sale because it violates the commission’s newspaper-broadcast crossownership rule or the television duopoly rule.