Sinclair/Tribune Not In Public Interest, Wheeler Says

The “Trump FCC’ has “bent the rules” to facilitate Sinclair buying Tribune, former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler blogged for the Brookings Institution Friday. Wheeler pointed to Chairman Ajit Pai’s resurrection of the UHF discount (see 1704200048) and proposed elimination of the main studio rule (see 1707030047) as “strategically knocking down all the regulatory barriers to Sinclair Broadcast becoming a national goliath.” Though Sinclair is seen as a right-leaning company favorable to the Trump administration, conservative channels such as TheBlaze, One America News Network and Newsmax (see 1708080067) joined those deal foes, Wheeler said. “The Sinclair merger has built an interesting record of opposition from strange bedfellows,” he said. “The politics of the decision are now muddled, but politics shouldn’t be the basis for decisionmaking anyway.” The record on Sinclair/Tribune “would suggest that even though the Trump FCC has bent the rules to facilitate such a merger, it is not in the public interest,” Wheeler said. The agency and Sinclair didn't comment.