Chairman Pai Won't Commit to Delaying Sinclair Decision for Court Ruling

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai wasn't predicting when the FCC's vetting of the Sinclair-Tribune deal would be complete, but suggested that the FCC had not yet had a chance to fully evaluate it. Sinclair filed its latest, and expected to be last, amendment to the deal earlier during the week of April 23.  

Chairman Pai was the single witness at a House Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee hearing on the FCC's budget. He would not agree to delay a decision on the Sinclair-Tribune deal until a court ruling on a related issue, the UHF discount. ChairmanPai said he would factor the potential court decision into the FCC's decisionmaking. One thing the FCC could do would be to condition the deal on the court upholding the UHF discount.