LAT: Controversy Over Kerry Film Only the Latest for Sinclair

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/la-na-sinclair24oct24,1,257925,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

For a glimpse at the Sinclair Broadcast Group's particular place in the American media landscape, consider the company's quest several years ago to add a new group of TV stations to its growing empire. The Federal Communications Commission had some problems with the deal -- a sensitive transaction because it involved the still largely taboo practice of owning more than one station in a given market. In this case, not only was Sinclair getting the stations for what was called a "small fraction of their value," but the commission also found the company, operating under an agreement merely to manage the stations, instead effectively had taken control of the outlets before the purchase.

The agency fined the company $40,000 for violating the rules.

Then it let Sinclair buy the stations anyway.

One commissioner, Michael J. Copps, was disturbed enough to write a strongly worded dissent to the 2001 opinion. "What makes Sinclair's practices disquieting . . . are its maneuvers to acquire interests in multiple stations in seeming contravention -- if not violation -- of commission rules," he wrote. "With each transaction over the years, Sinclair has stretched the limits of the Commission's local television ownership rules."