Various unions that opposed the Standard General-Tegna merger have told the FCC that it should not review a Media Bureau decision to refer the deal to an administrative law judge over FCC questions about the deal’s impact on retransmission consent and localism. That came in a petition filed Thursday by NABET-CWA and The News Guild, which oppose the merger.
The NewsGuild-CWA and National Alliance of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians-CWA unions are using a retransmission consent impasse between Dish and Apollo Global Management’s Cox Media Group to argue to the FCC against the merger of Standard General and Tegna.
The NewsGuild-CWA and and the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET)-CWA filed a petition to dismiss or deny the deal with the FCC on Wednesday (June 22), the deadline for such filings. They say the deal, which was approved by Tegna shareholders in May, and interrelated transactions — what they labeled an “unprecedented array of sequenced transactions and swaps” — are actually an attempt to “game the commission’s ownership and retransmission consent rules in ways that contravene the commission’s public interest standard.”
WTIC Employees To Hold Union Vote
On-air reporters and anchors as well as photographers at Fox affiliate WTIC Hartford, Conn., will decide on Feb. 18 whether they want the National Association of Broadcast Employees & Technicians-Communications Workers of America to represent them, a union official says.The union representation vote will involve 53 employees, Carrie Biggs-Adams, NABET-CWA staff representative, said.
NABET-CWA Rejects WNEM Contract Offer
Negotiations for a new contract at the Meredith-owned CBS affiliate began about 18 months ago. The union represents 50 employees, including photographers, editors, directors, on-air talent and maintenance engineers.
Exclusives
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.
