NBC Affiliates To FCC: JSA's Benefit Public

The leadership of the NBC TV Affiliate group were in Washington to, among other things, try and persuade the Federal Communications Commission not to start counting some television station joint sales agreements toward its local ownership limits, as it proposed in its Media Ownership rulemaking, which has yet to be voted.

Their first choice would be loosening those local limits, they told top FCC staffers in meetings, according to FCC documents. But failing that, they certainly don't want the FCC to tighten them by making some existing JSAs off limits in the future. Those JSAs, the broadcast execs said, have allowed them to keep TV a "strong and valued" journalism source given ongoing restrictions on common ownership they would prefer would be "out" going.