Sinclair Broadcasting Will Pay $28 Million Civil Penalty To FCC
Source: CNN
New York (CNN Business) -- Sinclair Broadcasting will pay the largest civil penalty involving a broadcaster in the Federal Communications Commission's history. The FCC said in a news release Wednesday that Sinclair agreed to pay $48 million, as well as "abide by a strict compliance plan in order to close three open investigations."
Those investigations include Sinclair's (SBGI) disclosure of information with regard to its ill-fated acquisition attempt of Tribune Media stations in 2018. That deal -- valued at $3.9 billion -- was scrutinized at the time by FCC commission chair Ajit Pai, and the agency formally referred the proposed acquisition to an administrative judge hearing. They also called into question whether some of Sinclair's divestments in the deal were a "sham."
Tribune Media eventually terminated its merger agreement with the conservative-leaning Sinclair, the largest owner of local television stations in the US. Had the acquisition gone through, Sinclair stations would cover a majority of the country.
On Wednesday, the FCC indicated the agreement "also closes investigations into whether the company has met its obligations to negotiate retransmission consent agreements in good faith and its failure to identify the sponsor of content it produced and supplied to both Sinclair and non-Sinclair television stations."...
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/media/fcc-sinclair-broadcasting-civil-penalty/index.html
...In the news release, the FCC said that Sinclair admitted to violating the FCC's sponsorship identification rules.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday that Sinclair's conduct during its attempt to merge with Tribune was "completely unacceptable." "Today's penalty, along with the failure of the Sinclair/Tribune transaction, should serve as a cautionary tale to other licensees seeking Commission approval of a transaction in the future," he said.
Pai also said he disagreed with those who called for revoking Sinclair's licenses. He described those demands as politically motivated. "While they don't like what they perceive to be the broadcaster's viewpoints, the First Amendment still applies around here," he said.
______________
Re- haul anti trust, update and restore the Fairness Doctrine.
Midnightwalk
(3,131 posts)48 million dollar fine for violations on a deal for 3.9 billion. And Sinclair pays the fines.
The bonuses if the deal worked would have been to the top execs personally and Im guessing would have been more than 48 million.
Next time they probably wont get caught.
I read that it is a record fine. The size of the scams continues to dwarf the penalties and no one ever goes to prison.
SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)I agree, the penalty should have been higher. But I'm kinda surprised it was even $48 million considering this is under the Trump Administration.
Midnightwalk
(3,131 posts)You dont win every time. You only need to win often enough to cover losses.
I have no idea what the profit margins are in a deal like this but Ill throw out 10-20%. That seems a conservative estimate. Less than that it might have been better to invest in stock. Not any more but then...
Thats 390M to 789M dollars of profit potential.
Just adding some arithmetic to the discussion. It sucks doesnt it?
I agree. There must have been something particularly blatant and publicly discoverable that made the penalty be required. One name springs to mind.
Ford_Prefect
(7,894 posts)melm00se
(4,991 posts)I am not sure how the Fairness Doctrine would fit/apply here.
Maybe you mean the cross-ownership rules?
One is unacceptable and the other should be rolled back to the 7-7-7 or 12-12-12 rules.
appalachiablue
(41,131 posts)what I meant
Dustlawyer
(10,495 posts)Our news on those two stations is the same. They even have most of the reporters working for both so you get almost the same exact newscast. This is bad for America!