Standard General and unions opposing the company’s buy of Tegna continued to lobby FCC commissioners on the deal last week. Standard founder Soohyung Kim and CEO Deborah McDermott “place a high value on local news operations and staff and they have no intention of reducing either following the transaction,” the two company executives told Commissioner Geoffrey Starks via videoconference, per an ex parte filing in docket 22-163. “They also stated that there is nothing in the record that would justify failure to promptly approve the transaction,” the filing said. Apollo Global Management and Standard General will be able to collaborate in their television operations to their mutual benefit, said the Communications Workers of America's NewsGuild and National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians sectors in their own videoconference with Commissioner Brendan Carr last week, according to another ex parte filing. “As a non-equity stockholder and lender, posttransaction, Apollo will share increased profits from the enhanced retransmission fees,” said the unions' filing. The unions are also skeptical of “enforceability of behavioral conditions” on the transaction, the unions said. “Approval of the applications, even with conditions, would be contrary to the public interest.”

The FCC’s audio description rules will apply in an additional 10 designated market areas starting Jan. 1, said a reminder public notice in Friday’s Daily Digest. The expansion stems from the agency’s 2020 audio description order (see 2004220065, which adds additional DMAs each year for four years. The rules, which require audio description for a portion of a broadcaster’s programming, will now apply in DMAs 81-90, which include Syracuse, Colorado Springs and Shreveport.

The FCC Media Bureau granted four channel substitutions in Montana requested by E.W. Scripps, said orders released Tuesday. KTVH-DT Helena will shift from Channel 12 to 31, KRTV Great Falls from 7 to 22, KPAX-TV Missoula from 7 to 25, and KXLF-TV Butte from 5 to 15, the orders said. No objections to any of the substitutions were received, the orders said.

Comments are due Jan. 12, replies Feb. 13, in docket 22-405 on petitions from NAB and Xperi for changes to limits on digital FM power levels, said a public notice in Monday’s Daily Digest (see 2210270061). NAB and Xperi want the FCC to adopt an updated formula to allow increased FM digital sideband power levels and combine the proceeding with a 2019 rulemaking requested by NAB, Xperi and NPR on “blanket authorization to originate digital transmissions at different power levels on the upper and lower digital sidebands (asymmetric sidebands).” The proposed changes “will serve the public interest by improving digital FM signal quality and coverage while minimizing harmful interference to adjacent-channel stations,” according to the petitioners.

“It is hard to reach any conclusion other than that NewsGuild’s baseless and incessant attacks on Standard General are the product of racial bias,” said Standard General in a letter to the FCC posted Tuesday in docket 22-162. Standard said the NewsGuild sector of the Communications Workers of America union’s opposition to the deal must be based in prejudice because NewsGuild hasn’t objected to previous deals that caused more consolidation. NewsGuild also took advantage of redactions in documents about the Standard/Tegna deal to mischaracterize them, Standard said. That’s a strategy aimed “at reporters that NewsGuild seeks to entice into amplifying its false claims,” said the letter. “The NewsGuild Ex Parte Presentations do nothing more than restate the same false and misleading allegations that NewsGuild has repeated throughout this proceeding.” NewsGuild’s attorneys didn’t comment.

The FCC should take note of reports that DOJ is scrutinizing the proposed Standard General/Tegna deal, and examine “the coordinated efforts of a private equity fund and a hedge fund to transfer assets from one to the other, with the sole purpose of raising prices for their mutual benefit,” said a joint filing posted Monday in docket 22-162 from Common Cause, Public Knowledge, the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, and two sectors of the Communications Workers of America. The groups argue that, if approved, the deal would become “a template” for other private equity entities and encourage collusive behavior, the groups said. The retrans price increases created from the deal’s after-acquired clauses “would not be the result of bona fide competition, but would simply be an artifact of an intentional manipulation of the transaction process by two interrelated parties with a shared interest in the incremental revenue,” said the filing.

A foreign-ownership request for Standard General’s proposed $8.6 billion buy of Tegna was OK'd by the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecom Services Sector, said an NTIA letter posted in docket 22-162 Friday. The committee, sometimes called Team Telecom, "has no recommendation at this time to the Commission approving the application and no objection to the Commission granting it,” said the letter. The foreign-ownership request was for Teton Parent, a subsidiary of Apollo Global Management, which owns deal participant Cox Media Group and is separately a financier of the transaction. Teton Parent sought permission to be up to 100% foreign owned, but the original petition for declaratory ruling also said 50% of the equity of Standard General is controlled through investment funds in the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands, and Apollo’s nonvoting shares in Tegna after the deal is concluded will mean Tegna will be 49.16% foreign owned.

The FCC should require regulatees to disclose equal opportunity employment statistics and publish them in a digital portal, said a group of investors who said they have “collective assets under management or advisement of approximately $266 billion,” in an ex parte letter posted in docket 19-177 Friday. The signatories include Arjuna Capital, New York State Common Retirement Fund, Boston Trust Walden and Sisters of the Precious Blood. The request echoes recent filings from a collection of diversity groups (see 2208260045). “We believe public release of EEO-1 data improves transparency for investors and allows market participants to assess whether companies stand by their public commitments to pursue diversity, equity and inclusion,” said the letter. The FCC “is responsible for ensuring that companies it regulates operate optimally for consumers and the public,” the letter said. “Mandatory EEO-1 data disclosures will foster best practices that ultimately promote stronger performance for investors.”

Standard General founder Soohyung Kim and CEO Deborah McDermott met with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington, and Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer last week to push for approval of the company’s proposed buy of Tegna, said an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 22-162. “There is nothing in the record that would justify failure to promptly approve the transaction,” said the filing. Meanwhile, the Communications Workers of America's NewsGuild and National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians sectors repeated their calls for a hearing in their own ex parte filing. Differences in interpretation between the unions and the broadcasters over Standard’s presentations to lenders “is precisely the kind of substantial and material question of fact that should be designated for a hearing,” said the unions. Documents submitted into the record by the broadcasters “only seem to confirm” the unions’ arguments “that post-closing, station-level job cuts are an integral feature of the proposed transaction, and that the Applicants have not been forthcoming about their intentions,” said the CWA groups. “Mr. Kim and Ms. McDermott reiterated that they place a high value on local news operations and staff and that they have no intention of reducing either following the transaction,” said Standard’s filing.

Comments are due Dec. 19, replies Jan. 3, on proposals to update the FCC’s foreign-sponsored content rules (see 2210060068), according to a notice for Thursday's Federal Register. The proposed rule changes follow a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision that struck down a requirement to check federal databases. Updates would include requiring broadcasters and programming lessees to certify that programming deals aren’t sponsored by foreign governments. A bill that would explicitly grant the FCC the authority to require the federal database checks has also been filed in Congress (see 2211030057).