Sinclair Made Last Ditch Effort to Head Off FCC Hearing

Author: 
Coverage Type: 

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai phoned Sinclair executive vice president and general counsel Barry Faber July 18 to let the company know that just withdrawing the three TV station "sweetheart deal" sale applications was not going to head off an administrative hearing on the proposed Tribune merger. But Faber told Chairman Pai in a letter filed with the FCC that the company was not planning to cancel the deal the week of July 16, saying that would require board approval it did not have. Furthermore, Faber said Sinclair should not have to cancel the deal because it had never hidden or mischaracterized the structure of the deal. Sinclair tried to get Chairman Pai to delay the hearing, but the hearing designation order passed unanimously. The hearing looks certain unless Sinclair does decide to pull the plug on the deal. "I know that you told me yesterday that the withdrawal of these three applications would not prevent you moving forward with the [Hearing Designation Order]," Faber wrote, "but I am writing to ask you to reconsider that position (or at least delay it until you have an opportunity to more fully consider the situation," Faber wrote. Chairman Pai didn't delay the decision, and with the vote of FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly on July 18 making it unanimous, the deal was referred to the FCC's lone administrative law judge for an evidentiary hearing that could take upwards of a year. 


Sinclair Made Last Ditch Effort to Head Off FCC Hearing