Deals letting TV stations share services were the focus of more...

Deals letting TV stations share services were the focus of more lobbying (CD Dec 20 p20) at the FCC last week, docket 09-182 showed (http://xrl.us/bn7g5r). Draft media ownership rules would attribute joint services agreements (JSA) as ownership to a station brokering about 15 percent or more ads for another separately owned outlet in the same market. Broadcasters continued to say JSAs shouldn’t be attributed, while cable operators and a nonprofit opposed to consolidation want more types of arrangements counted toward a market’s ownership limits. Schurz Communications, with three TV stations in JSAs, asked the agency to not “change its established way” of handling such arrangements. The “one exception” to the commission not grandfathering existing ownership arrangements when new rules are adopted was the 2003 order attributing radio JSAs, Schurz noted. “But that occurred after the local radio limits had been significantly relaxed, in contrast to the television rules which remain unchanged.” Asked by FCC staff about waivers for local ownership of media assets, executives of Schurz, owner of cable systems, newspapers and radio and TV stations, said there are often delays getting such exceptions. That “would make that an unattractive option since stations could be tied up for an indefinite period while the waiver was under consideration,” a filing said (http://xrl.us/bn7g6w) of meetings with Chief Bill Lake and others in the Media Bureau, Commissioner Ajit Pai and aides to the other four FCC members. Because eight years have passed since a rulemaking notice proposed attributing TV JSAs, “interested parties should have the opportunity to update the record that would be permitted by a delay in action,” Sinclair General Counsel Barry Faber emailed Lake Thursday, two days after they met. That would let the agency “reach conclusions based on current marketplace conditions,” said the email, included in the company’s ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bn7g66). Lake and other bureau officials were asked during the meeting by Faber “to slow down [the FCC’s] apparent rush to judgment” on TV JSAs. Faber has criticized attributing them (CD Nov 29 p5). LIN Media, part of four JSAs, thinks any arrangements already OK'd by the agency as part of station transactions “should be permanently grandfathered,” a filing said. LIN would prefer the pacts not be attributed at all, it said of “situations where the parties have invested millions in arrangements approved by the Commission.” Radio has seen “necessary deregulation in ownership caps while the television ownership limits have remained tightly constrained, especially in small markets,” a LIN executive told Lake and others in the bureau. NCTA meanwhile continued lobbying for the agency to deem attributable ownership of any TV station that has its retransmission consent deals negotiated by another nearby outlet, to the negotiating broadcaster, executives said in meetings with bureau officials and aides to commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel. The current draft order’s focus on JSAs “is puzzling” to Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood, he recounted (http://xrl.us/bn7g8q) telling an aide to Rosenworcel. “News co-production and ’sharing’ arrangements seem more likely to allow for control or influence over another licensee’s programming than do JSAs.” Wood sees a “growing consensus” the agency should study the impact on ownership opportunities for minorities and women of changing newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rules, before changing the regulations, he said. Minority and woman ownership remains “disproportionately low,” NAB said (http://xrl.us/bn7g9a) in early-filed comments on Form 323 ownership figures for those and other demographic groups. The association, though, cited “some positive developments in the numbers of minority and female owners, attributable interest holders, and positional interest holders.” Form 323 initial comments are due Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bn7g9r).