Report: FCC’s Wheeler Putting Brakes on SSAs

Apparently, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has put a hold on station sale applications that include shared services agreements that allow broadcasters to set up sidecar companies to control key aspects of multiple TV stations in the same market -- until he decides how he wants to handle sidecar deals in the future, according to unnamed sources. Station transactions that include shared services and related joint sales agreements have been routinely approved by the agency in the past.