TV station joint sales agreements help enhance localism, diversity and...

TV station joint sales agreements help enhance localism, diversity and competition, Bonten Media Group said in an ex parte FCC filing in docket 09-182 (http://xrl.us/bodeee). While the concerns that some have raised about JSAs and shared services agreements are speculative, “the benefits are quite concrete,” a Bonten attorney said about a meeting with Bonten CEO Randall Bongarten and staff from Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s office. These real-world benefits would be jeopardized “if such agreements were deemed to be attributable,” the filing said. Economies of scale in operating costs and in capital expenditures enabled Bonten “to support and to expand top-ranked local news operations and to hire more reporters and to invest in HD upgrades,” it said. In a separate ex parte filing in the same docket, Cox reiterated its interest in changing the FCC’s cross ownership rules (http://xrl.us/bodefj). Cox also supports moving from a contour-based approach to a modified designated market area-based and Arbitron Metro-based approach “for identifying newspaper-broadcast combinations that would be covered by any remaining rule,” it said Cox executives told staff from offices of all the commissioners.