FCC OKs Nexstar Purchase of Hoak Stations

The Federal Communications Commission has approved the sale of three Hoak Media stations in Colorado to Nexstar.

They are KREX-TV Grand Junction and two satellite stations, KREY-TV Montrose and KREG-TV Glenwood. Gray Television bought the Hoak stations, but spun off the Colorado outlets to Nexstar. All three stations are in the Grand Junction (CO) market, but since satellite stations only rebroadcast the signal of the originating station on another channel too hard to reach areas, they are exempt from the duopoly rules.

The FCC agreed to extend that waiver, even though it found Nexstar had not met the presumptive standard.

Nexstar had sought an extension of that waiver as part of the sale since the FCC requires transfer applicants to demonstrate compliance with the presumptive waiver standard, which includes no overlap of signal between the parent station and satellite and no operator ready to purchase and operate the satellite as a full-service station. But the commission will also consider extending the waiver on an ad hoc basis even if the presumptive standard is not met, which it did in this case.