Broadcast Unions Blast NAB on Merger Review Proposals

Protecting broadcasting “should not mean inviting hedge funds, private equity, and other predatory investors to undermine local broadcasting in order to extract profits,” said Claude Cummings, president-Communications Workers of America (CWA), and Charlie Braico, president-National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA, in a news release Wednesday responding to testimony and a blog from NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt. Both unions were part of the successful opposition to Standard's proposed buy of Tegna. Any efforts at the FCC or Congress to change the merger review process should ensure unions have standing to oppose broadcast deals, include labor markets as part of public interest review, and preserve the fact-finding hearing process, the unions said. “In his call for a simple ‘up or down vote,’ LeGeyt is more concerned with rushing the process than with transparency and thoroughness,” the unions said. “Employment at broadcast TV stations is material to determining whether localism, and therefore the public interest, is being served by a transaction.” NAB didn't comment.