On April 4, one of the biggest transactions to result from the FCC’s November 2017 party-line vote to eliminate its cross-ownership rules for newspaper and broadcast media and for radio and TV, respectively, was struck.
It raised eyebrows, as it would have given one company control of the ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX affiliates serving one mid-America municipality and its surrounding towns.
It now seems that the Third Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals’ Sept. 23 decision to vacate and remand the rule write has played a part in the abandonment of what would have been a controversial multi-million dollar transaction.
On October 15, Wiley Rein communications law attorney John Burgett had a letter hand-delivered to the office of FCC Secretary Marlene Dortch requesting the dismissal of a Form 314 filing made some five months before by St. Joseph TV License Company.
That’s the official licensee of Heartland Media, which in April announced that it was selling its KQTV-2 in St. Joseph, Mo., to News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG) for $13,650,000.
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