The FCC should review and overturn the Media...

The FCC should review and overturn the Media Bureau approval of Tribune buying Local Media and Gannett buying Belo, said Free Press and several other public interest groups in a pair of applications for review filed Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1kZ028k). Though the bureau said it was within commission precedent for both transactions to be handled at the bureau level (CD Dec 23 p3), Free Press is arguing that the full commission has never ruled on the sharing arrangements and ownership issues involved in the two transactions. “The so-called precedent is only at the bureau level,” said Free Press Policy Counsel Lauren Wilson in an interview. Previous transactions that raised similar ownership issues -- such as Media Council Hawai'i’s dispute with Raycom -- have applications for review that have been pending for years without being taken up by the full commission, she said. “The full commission hasn’t ruled on this,” Wilson said. “The Bureau assumed that because the transaction fit with staff-level Bureau precedent -- that has never been reviewed by the full Commission -- it was in the public interest,” said the review application for Gannett/Belo. “The Commission should overturn Bureau precedent regarding sharing arrangements crafted to circumvent its broadcast TV ownership rules and provide guidance on whether these sharing arrangements can be consistent with the public interest.” Along with the arguments against sharing arrangements previously raised in the public interest petitions to deny the Tribune/Local and Gannett/Belo (CD Aug 12 p9), Free Press also pointed to Department of Justice concerns about Gannett’s influence over the ostensibly separate companies it has sharing arrangements with (CD Dec 17 p6). “The Bureau did not address any of the DOJ’s conclusions or rationale, or whether the DOJ’s decision affected the Bureau’s broader determination of whether the assignments serve the public interest,” said Free Press. The commission needs to examine both transactions, because without intervention, “the Bureau will continue to simply check whether the contracts contain language giving ultimate authority to the licensee, rather than evaluate the proposed transaction as a whole” against a public interest standard, said the filing on the Tribune deal. “Broadcasters will continue to exploit the sharing arrangement loophole so long as the full Commission remains silent,” said Free Press’s Gannett/Belo application for review. Gannett, Tribune and the bureau didn’t comment.