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Sinclair’s WJLA Purchase Challenged At FCC

In a petition to deny the $985 million sale of the Washington ABC affiliate, Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition asks the FCC to hold a hearing on whether Sinclair's widespread use of LMAs and JSAs is an attempt to evade FCC ownership restrictions.

By Doug Halonen | September 13, 2013 | 3:52 p.m. ET.

Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition has asked the FCC to reject Sinclair Broadcast Group’s effort to buy Allbritton Communications’ ABC affiliate WJLA Washington.

In a Sept. 13 petition to deny at the FCC, Rainbow PUSH also asked the agency to hold a hearing on whether Sinclair — which has proposed to buy all seven of Allbritton’s ABC affiliates, including the company’s flagship WJLA, for $985 million — is basically qualified to be an agency licensee.

In its petition, Rainbow PUSH is asking the FCC to investigate in particular Sinclair’s long-time relationship with Cunningham Broadcasting — and into various Sinclair relationships with other companies — to determine whether Sinclair is using those arrangements to evade local FCC ownership restrictions that generally bar broadcasters from owning more than two TV stations in the same market.

“This case has great importance, involving as it does, the basic qualification of America’s largest television broadcaster, and the uses and potential abuses of ownership structures — LMAs (local marketing agreements), JSAs (joint sales agreements) and SSAs (shared services agreements) — that have long vexed the commission and its staff,” said the petition.

Rainbow PUSH, a nonprofit civil rights advocacy group, is represented in Washington by attorney David Honig.

A Sinclair spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

BRAND CONNECTIONS

The watchdog group Free Press is also planning to file a petition to deny Sinclair’s acquisition of the Allbritton stations later this evening, said Jenn Topper, a Free Press spokeswoman.

Free Press previously asked the FCC to deny an effort by Tribune Broadcasting to operate under shared services agreements three of the 19 TV stations the company is buying as part of its $2.7 billion acquisition of Local TV.

In addition, Free Press was part of coalition of watchdog groups asking the FCC to deny Gannett’s acquisition of TV station owner Belo, claiming that the acquisition of several stations would violate the FCC’s newspaper-broadcast crossownership rule or the TV duopoly rule

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wendy l kaiser says:

September 13, 2013 at 4:07 pm

Disney/ABC will Buy WJLA-TV and Make ABC O&O sometimes in 2014, WJLA is largest ABC Stations (DMA#8) without ABC Owned-and-Operated

    Angie McClimon says:

    September 13, 2013 at 4:20 pm

    I agree. SSAs, JSAs, and LMAs are overused. Some groups buy stations and immediately flip them into SSAs with another local owner (American Spirit Media and Raycom come to mind).

    Alan Whitney says:

    September 13, 2013 at 4:20 pm

    What are you talking about? Sinclair bought it, Disney either didn’t want the Allbritton group or they were outbid by Sinclair.

    Wagner Pereira says:

    September 13, 2013 at 4:21 pm

    Your thinking is so last Century. ABC does not need to buy WJLA-TV if they want to enter DC. With ATSC, there is no VHF advantage and with ~90% via MVPD positions do not really matter either. Most stations do not have RF at the frequency their channel would indicate. If really interested, ABC/Disney could simply purchase any of the lower rated Independents, unwind the affiliate agreement and move their programming over. Furthermore, if you have not followed the news, Disney is announcing $6B-$8B stock buybacks over the next 12 months, which is where it expects to be spending its money. Also notice the cutbacks at ABC O&Os over the last month, not to mention cutbacks at ESPN and dropping ESPN 3D – not to mention no plans for a 4k channel. And lastly, WFAA-TV Dallas DMA #5 = Belo, WCVB-TV Boston DMA #7 = Hearst.

    MEGAN STOLL says:

    September 13, 2013 at 4:57 pm

    Actually, Belo owns WFAA in Dallas, DMA #5.

    Matt Nocton says:

    September 13, 2013 at 5:03 pm

    ABC may have wanted WJLA, but Allbritton will not sell unless the buyer agrees to take the entire group, otherwise they face a significant tax penalty that would eat into their pretty payday. With that in mind, ABC won’t be the buyer. They’re more inclined to sell off or cut staff at what stations they have.

    If, in some crazy world, the FCC actually does block the sale to Sinclair, I think Hearst or possibly Raycom would be the first ones to step in. Maybe Gannett if the process takes long enough for them to have Belo’s money in their coffers.

Maria Black says:

September 13, 2013 at 4:25 pm

Oh, what about Nexstar? Where is THAT lawsuit? if they are going to claim Sinclair doing this is a violation, they should add the other flagrant offender in JSA/SSA/LMA agreement shenanigans.

    wendy l kaiser says:

    September 13, 2013 at 4:26 pm

    Good Question

    Joe Adalian says:

    September 15, 2013 at 12:06 pm

    Jesse Jackson hates Sinclair. Going back to the days of Eddie Edwards association with Sinclair. Jesse tried to strong-arm Eddie (Eddie is a very distinguished black man that will no fold to Jackson’s tactics). JJ is using this to raise money. You never hear from him otherwise.

Andrea Rader says:

September 14, 2013 at 7:32 pm

I think Sinclair’s conservative editorials have a lot to do with Rainbow PUSH’s selective outrage.

Joe Jaime says:

September 15, 2013 at 11:17 am

Is this really an attempt to extract hiring concessions and a payoff to Rainbow in exchange to back off…. a lot of this happened 30 years ago in radio during licence renewal period …hopefully JJ is not resorting to this as a fund raiser!! This deal is too big to ignore and the FCC has rubber stamped these transactions for years. Will the commission reverse all the prior deals? Not likely. Will it approve this one? Stay tuned.