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FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel is in a position to do much good for TV journalism, but she chooses to do harm.
On March 21, the agency fined Nexstar $1.2 million for exceeding the 39% national TV ownership cap by six points though its de facto control of WPIX New York. In addition to paying the fine, Nexstar must sell the station or a passel of stations in smaller markets to dip back under the cap.
I presume Nexstar will fight the fine and divestiture, and we can hope that it finds relief at the FCC or in the courts.
When Nexstar bought the Tribune group in 2019, it spun off WPIX and other stations to avoid any entanglements with the ownership restrictions that might hold up the $7.2 billion deal.
Two years later, with the approval of the FCC, Nexstar’s sidecar station group Mission Broadcasting bought the station from Scripps.
Like other sidecar groups and stations, Mission was created by Nexstar to circumvent the FCC ownership limits in 26 markets. Mission has separate ownership, but for all practical purposes, it functions as a subsidiary of Nexstar. Nexstar couldn’t buy WPIX without exceeding the national ownership cap, but its alter ego Mission could.
Such arrangements, in various forms, have grown in popularity over the past few decades with the blessing of the FCC. Today, they are deeply embedded in the fabric of the radio and TV businesses.
With this latest action, the FCC is now saying Nexstar’s control of