Standard General managing partner Soo Kim has asked to meet with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) after the legislator wrote to FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel this week asking the regulator to block Standard General’s proposed purchase of Tegna assets for north of $8 billion.

The Federal Communications Commission is currently seeking comment on a number of pledges the companies have made to address anti-competitive concerns, but Warren told Rosenworcel that such conditions are “historically ineffective and should provide no comfort that these Wall Street firms will not engage in anticompetitive practices after the deal is completed.”

In a letter to Warren Friday (January 13), a copy of which was provided to Broadcasting+Cable, Kim said he wanted to meet with Warren to talk about her concerns, but in the interim said that the rationale for the deal is to create a stronger local broadcaster to compete with Big Tech and media “giants.”

Kim suggested that job cuts at Tegna were more likely if the deal doesn’t go through than if it does.

“Respectfully Senator, we would also ask you to consider the impact if this deal is blocked,” Kim wrote. “As an immediate effect, Tegna, as a publicly traded company, would be left subject to the intense pressure of the public markets to cut costs as the economy slows, ad spending shrinks and competition increases. The current economic climate has made announcements of media job cuts routine across the industry, including most recently at CNN, Gannett and The Washington Post.”

He also told Warren that blocking the deal would mean preventing the creation of the largest minority-owned and woman-led broadcaster in the country.

Kim is Asian-American and Standard Media is run by Deb McDermott.  

“If that fact means nothing to regulators in their public interest assessment — indeed, if the goalposts are moved to make approval far harder than any previously proposed transaction in this industry, it only diminishes the chances of other minority entrepreneurs entering this critically important space,”  he wrote.

Also: Standard General, Tegna Say Deal Opposition Is Legally Irrelevant

The commitments the FCC is currently vetting from Standard General include agreeing not to apply higher retrans rates to Tegna stations due to so-called “after-acquired” clauses that could otherwise raise Tegna retrans rates to those of Standard General stations and agreeing, as multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) had called for, not to enter into joint sales agreements (JSAs), shared services agreements (SSAs) or local marketing agreements (LMAs) between Tegna and Cox Media Group stations. (CMG parent Apollo Global Management is providing funding for the proposed merger and getting stations in a side deal.)

Standard General agreed to acquire Tegna in an $8.6 billion transaction that includes the assumption of $3.2 billion in debt. Apollo is providing some of the funding for the deal. 

Addressing critics concerned about the relationship with Apollo, Kim told Warren: “[C]ontrary to a common misperception, Standard General does not, in fact, own any stake in Cox Media Group (‘CMG’). Regardless, as a ‘belt-and-suspenders’ effort to address any conceivable concerns regarding Apollo’s role as one of the smaller sources of financing for the Tegna acquisition, we have fully committed to not enter any joint sales, shared services or mocal marketing agreements with CMG stations. This despite the fact that Tegna today could enter into just such contracts consistent with FCC rules and policies.”

Petitions to deny the deal were filed by unions The NewsGuild-CWA and the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET)-CWA, as well as station group Graham Media Holdings.

The FCC is currently on day 267 of its informal 180-day shot clock for merger reviews. ■

Women's advocacy group UltraViolet Action is blaming "sexist media coverage" in large part for Elizabeth Warren's decision Thursday (March 5) to drop out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Various reports had Warren suspending her campaign, though her campaign Web site was still seeking supporters with the rallying cry: "LET’S DREAM BIG, FIGHT HARD, AND WIN."

Related: UltraViolet Buys TV Ads to Block Kavanaugh Nomination

"[W]ith earned media driving this election cycle, just as it did in 2016, we once again saw the devastatingly decisive impact that sexist and racist news coverage has on women and people of color running for office.," said UltraViolet Action co-founder Shaunna Thomas."We saw the impact of the DNC policy decisions that kept candidates of color off the debate stage, starving them of needed exposure, and the deep bias on the part of mainstream media that has shaped voters perceptions of who is electable. It is clear from Warren’s campaign that there is a glass ceiling held firmly in place for women by a media who relentlessly shape voters perceptions of who is electable through a deeply sexist lens."

"In a year in which primary voters' top concerns is electability - the media has had a massive impact on how voters perceived the candidates - and when Warren was on the top of the polls, the main narrative driven by the media was that she was not electable," she added. "That’s unacceptable."

Warren has leveled the media criticism herself.

At a CNN town hall last year, she talked about her run for the Senate in 2012. She said the early news coverage was "about what I'm wearing, it's about my hair, it's about my voice, it's about whether or not I smile enough -- I didn't." And she won anyway.

Thomas suggested there was similar focus this time around, but with a different result.

It is the media's sexism that determined Warren's fate...[t]he media is responsible for hurting her ability to win support among primary voters."

A handful of Democratic senators have asked FCC chair Ajit Pai to put the new T-Mobile-Sprint conditions offered up this week out for public comment before voting on the deal.  

Pai said this week that the conditions, including spinning off Boost Mobile, holding down prices and pledging 5G buildouts, made the deal in the public interest and he planned to circulate an order approving it, which his fellow Republican commissioners, comprising a majority, indicated they would support. 

In the letter, the senators, who opposed the deal as previously constituted, said they still oppose it and asked both the FCC and Justice Department to reject it.  

Related: FCC Poised to OK T-Mobile-Sprint Merger

They cited the behavioral conditions, but made no mention of the Boost spin-off. 

They said the conditions are mostly unrelated to merger-specific harms and thus the type of condition the chairman has criticized in the past. They also said they were worried about the process and that the conditions appeared without public input or "visibility." 

As a result, they said, the FCC should give the public 30 days to weigh in on the conditions, though they did not need that long to say they don't think they make the deal palatable.  

Signing on to the letter were Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey (both D-Mass.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). 

Democratic senators hammered FCC Chairman Ajit Pai over his decision to rescind a report on the successes of the FCC's E-rate program, one of several actions late in his predecessor's tenure (Jan. 18, two days before FCC

Chairman Tom Wheeler's exit) that the new chairman rolled back in his first days in office, signaling it did not reflect the official views of the agency.

The topic of E-rate and the report is likely to come up in Wednesday's Senate Commerce Committee FCC oversight hearing with Pai and the other commissioners.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who was the author of the E-rate program--a subsidy for advanced telecom to schools and libraries--as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act--led a group of a dozen senators who said they were worried about what the report's pullback meant for the future of the program.

"Your actions threaten to roll back progress made in all of these states and disrupt schools and libraries’ carefully planned multi-year budgets," they wrote. "Accordingly, we call on you to guarantee that this treasured program will not be undermined in any way under your watch.”

They cited the benefits of the program--increasing the number of students connected to the 'net and expanding funding for Wi-Fi nets, helping low-income and rural communities--Pai has signaled that rural broadband access will be a priority at the new commission.

"Your decision to retract these facts and eliminate the report is worrying to us, who support this vital program," they said.

Also signing on to the letter were Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Jeffery Merkley (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Bob Casey (D-Pa.)

An FCC official said on background that the chairman continues to support the E-rate program and continued investment in next gen tech for students and library patrons, but that the report was rescinded because it was released without notifying the commissioners and without coordinating it with the appropriate staffers.

He said the rescission was because the report reflected the views of its drafter, rather than of the agency.

The report remains available on the FCC Web site.