DOJ Requires Sinclair and 5 Other Broadcast TV Companies to Terminate and Refrain from Unlawful Sharing of Competitively Sensitive Information

The Department of Justice announced that it has reached a settlement with six broadcast television companies — Sinclair, Raycom Media, Tribune Media Company, Meredith Corporation, Griffin Communications, and Dreamcatcher Broadcasting — to resolve a DOJ lawsuit alleging that the companies engaged in unlawful agreements to share non-public competitively sensitive information with their broadcast television competitors. “The unlawful exchange of competitively sensitive information allowed these television broadcast companies to disrupt the normal competitive process of spot advertising in markets across the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “Advertisers rely on competition among owners of broadcast television stations to obtain reasonable advertising rates, but this unlawful sharing of information lessened that competition and thereby harmed the local businesses and the consumers they serve.” 

The proposed settlement prohibits the direct or indirect sharing of such competitively sensitive information. The Department has determined that prohibiting this conduct would resolve the antitrust concerns raised as a result of the conduct of these defendants.  The proposed settlement further requires defendants to cooperate in the department’s ongoing investigation, and to adopt rigorous antitrust compliance and reporting measures to prevent similar anticompetitive conduct in the future.  The settlement has a seven year term, and it will continue to apply to stations currently owned by defendants, even if those stations are acquired by another company.