TV Mergers Worth Billions Put On Hold as FCC Shuts Down

The billions of dollars of “rolling M&A thunder,” as Nexstar CEO Perry Sook put it, that has shaken the local broadcast television industry could be muffled a bit by the government shutdown.

Among the government agencies affected by the shutdown is the Federal Communications Commission, which is in the midst of reviewing the biggest broadcast mergers in 2013. (Think Gannett’s $1.5 billion purchase of Belo, Tribune’s $2.7 billion deal to buy Local TV, or Sinclair’s $985 million takeover of Allbritton Communications.) The FCC announced that it was suspending the informal 180-day time clock for reviewing transactions as a result of the shutdown.