It turns out the Federal Communications Commission didn’t mean to publicize the fact that the Media Bureau is investigating Sinclair Broadcast Group related to its aborted merger with Tribune Media, an investigation cable operators were happy to see.

Cable ops have long argued that Sinclair pushes the ownership limits via joint agreements and arm’slength transactions to control more stations than the FCC rules would normally allow.

The Media Bureau investigation was not in response to a complaint or challenge to Sinclair’s licenses, an FCC source confirmed. In any event, the regulator does not comment on ongoing investigations, as anyone who has watched chairman Ajit Pai testify before Congress can attest.

But there was the hearing designation order in the FCC’s searchable database — which was slipped over the electronic transom to The Wire by an eagle-eyed former broadcast bigwig.

In letters to Sinclair attorneys, the FCC is seeking, on penalty of perjury, answers to lots of questions about how the broadcaster structured the deal, how prices were calculated and what the relationship of Sinclair execs to the parties buying spinoff stations might be.

The FCC commissioners unanimously voted to designate the deal for hearing — a death knell — and all had questions about how Sinclair represented the deal to them and whether it did so accurately. The hearing was dropped after the deal was withdrawn, but those questions remain and the Media Bureau opened an investigation, as many suspected it would.

So, if the FCC does not publicize ongoing investigations, how did the document wind up in the public database? The FCC chalked it up to a clerical error and, when asked about it at a press conference, Pai had nothing more to add.

No word on who made the electronic slip.

The FCC has yet to release the hearing designation order (HDO), but it is looking more like Sinclair's proposed Tribune deal is headed for an administrative law judge hearing despite the broadcasters' efforts to fix the deal and head off that potentially lengthy process.

The draft order has been changed since it was first circulated earlier this week, but primarily to try to speed the hearing process so it does not become a de facto deal-killer in response to concerns from commissioner Michael O'Rielly, though it appears that may simply be to help the next deal rather than this one.

A source who has seen the final order said that there were "questions of fact on how Sinclair presented information to the commission that have to be resolved through a hearing of some sort, and [FCC chair Ajit Pai] has elected to use the administrative law judge."

Sinclair has strongly denied it did anything wrong and said it made it clear to the FCC who was buying the stations and the sidecar agreements that would be included.

When Pai first circulated the order July 16, he said: “Based on a thorough review of the record, I have serious concerns about the Sinclair-Tribune transaction. The evidence we’ve received suggests that certain station divestitures that have been proposed to the FCC would allow Sinclair to control those stations in practice, even if not in name, in violation of the law."

On Wednesday (July 18), Sinclair withdrew sales of three stations that appeared to create issues with the FCC. The company said it would sell two of the stations to buyers the FCC liked and keep the third, saying that should resolve the issue.

But the FCC source said the takeaway is no quick fix or resolution is likely.

As to why O'Rielly joined in the vote, an aide to the commissioner said: "He recognizes that, based on the material made available to us, there are questions of fact that need to be resolved and, begrudgingly, what's left right now is for us to send it to an ALJ. Unfortunately, that process is so horrendous that we're not naive in believing we are going to get to resolve these questions of fact."

Sinclair and Tribune have an Aug. 8 breakup date for the deal, so that will need to be pushed back if they continue to pursue it. A court decision on the UHF discount that allowed for the deal could also come out any day; it could potentially unwind the deal as well.

"Commissioner O'Rielly has a long history of criticizing the administrative law judge process," the aide said of the changes to the order. "We shouldn't have a process where if we refer something for a hearing it means a death knell for the hearing. We did what we could to enhance the structure of the ALJ process." 

When asked if that meant it could drag on for a couple of years, the aide said, "It probably could."

The aide said O'Rielly's office hoped it would at least serve as precedent for future hearing draft orders.

At a D.C. event Wednesday, commissioner Brendan Carr also said he fully agreed with designating the deal for a hearing, according to a source at the event. Pai and Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel had already voted it.

The FCC's voluntary merger review shot clock hasn't been getting much action lately.

The Sinclair-Tribune shot clock stopped in January and probably won't start until at least July 12, the deadline for comment on Sinclair's latest version of the deal, though the FCC is not making it particularly easy to figure out just how that fifth version differs from the others.

Related: Groups Petition FCC to Delay Sinclair-Tribune Decision

The shot clock on the T-Mobile-Sprint merger proposal had not started at press time. The FCC opened the comment docket June 15 but has yet to put the application out for comment.

An FCC spokesperson said that clock won't start until the FCC has determined that the application has been correctly and completely filed.

Gray television’s proposed $3.6 billion purchase of Raycom Media is the latest in what is becoming a long line of mergers in broadcast TV. Though both parties have touted advertising and viewership synergies, for pay TV distributors the deal’s impact means mostly one thing: more retransmission-consent fees to pay.

The Gray-Raycom merger is just the latest in what has been a string of broadcast station group takeovers. The largest, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s pending $3.9 billion purchase of Tribune Media to create a 215-station behemoth covering 72% of the country, is still being hotly debated as it winds through the regulatory process.

The Gray deal, which would vault the companies from the No. 6 and No. 7 spots among broadcast station groups to the third position, behind Sinclair and Nexstar Broadcasting, would create a third retransmission consent powerhouse.

More Stations, More Clout

Presenting to investors and analysts, Gray estimated gross retransmission-consent revenue for the combined company would be about $573 million annually.

About half of that money goes back to the respective network affiliates. But it’s all money that distributors have to pay.

In short, more stations means more retrans clout.

The American Cable Association, which represents about 700 small and midsized independent cable operators across the country, estimated in February that retrans fees could rise 88% by 2020. As broadcasters continue to consolidate, that can only get worse.

“As ACA and others have repeatedly observed, broadcast consolidation increases a broadcaster’s leverage in retransmission-consent negotiations,” the ACA said in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission earlier this year against the Sinclair-Tribune merger. “This, in turn, leads to higher rates paid by MVPD subscribers and other harms to the public.”

On a call with analysts, Gray TV chief legal and development officer Kevin Letek said any Raycom retrans contracts would fall to the higher Gray TV rate card after the deal closes — meaning some markets could see a step-up in fees right away.

“[W]e have after-acquire clauses, so any operator that has a contract with Gray today will have the Raycom stations fall into them,” Letek said.

The deal will also serve to consolidate more retrans clout within the top three station groups.

In 2017, Nexstar reported retrans revenue of $995.8 million, a 152% increase from the year before. Tribune netted retrans fees of $412.3 million for 2017, a 23% increase. Sinclair, which does not break out retrans fees separately, was estimated by Wells Fargo to have taken in about $1 billion in retrans fees in 2017.

Combined, the three mega-broadcasters would control about $2.5 billion in retrans revenue. That’s almost 30% of the total estimated haul of $9.4 billion for that year, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Though retrans fees were expected to level off in the next few years after a decade of exponential increases, for some broadcasters the key to keeping retrans increases healthy has been to amass more stations in more markets.

With Raycom, Gray TV will increase its owned and operated stations to 142 in 92 markets, covering 24% of the TV homes in the U.S. Many of those markets will be small — like Ottumwa, Iowa, and Fairbanks, Alaska — but the combined company will have a few top DMAs like Tampa-Sarasota, Fla.; Cleveland; and Charlotte, N.C.

From a retrans and advertising standpoint, the deal puts tremendous power in Gray’s hands: it will own the No. 1 or No. 2 TV station in about 85 of those 92 markets after the deal closes.

For cable operators, that usually means tough retrans negotiations.

“I don’t see any way these mergers lead to lower consumer prices,” Mediacom SVP of government and public relations Tom Larsen said. “Broadcast TV is quickly becoming a luxury that more and more Americans can no longer afford.”

Gray already has some of the highest per-subscriber retrans fees among publicly traded station groups: about $2.23 per subscriber per month in Q1 2018, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence head of research Robin Flynn.

Gray estimates its retrans haul will rise about $15 million in the first year alone after the deal closes, as Raycom stations step up to its rates.

“Overall, that increase (and any other future station consolidation with similar economics) will boost industry retrans revenues, which we had previously estimated would reach $10.2 billion in 2018 and $10.8 billion in 2019, versus $9.4 billion in 2017,” Flynn said.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Sinclair’s purchase of Tribune Media would further distance the station group from its peers, giving it more than 200 owned and operated stations covering 72% of total TV homes.

Higher Prices to Consumers?

Sinclair has said it would divest of some stations — mainly those where it has a marketing agreement but little or no ownership — but it’s still expected to dominate the scene.

Much of the outrage over the Sinclair-Tribune merger has concentrated on its ultra-conservative programming and its unprecedented reach. Some critics, though, have pointed to its retrans dominance as potentially harmful to consumers.

In coming out against the Sinclair merger, the American Civil Liberties Union said the deal “would give Sinclair sufficient market power to drive smaller broadcasters out of business, hitting rural consumers especially hard.” After that, “Sinclair will step up its ‘take it or leave it’ retransmission offers to small cable stations, which will result in higher prices passed on to consumers and a crowding out of stations that do not or cannot afford to submit to strong-arm negotiating tactics.”

Critics of the Sinclair-Tribune merger continue to try to get FCC chair Ajit Pai to delay a decision on the deal until a federal appeals court rules on the UHF discount that made the combo possible.

The FCC restored the discount under Pai -- it had been eliminated under Democratic chair Tom Wheeler.

The UHF discount means a TV station group only has to count 50% of its UHF TV stations' audience toward the 39% national audience reach cap.

Pai declined when Hill Democrats asked him to delay the decision until the court rules, but Common Cause and Public Knowledge Thursday officially petitioned the commission to "hold the proceeding in abeyance," which is just legalese for "hold off," pointing out that "the Court’s consideration of the UHF Reinstatement Order has direct bearing on whether the proposed acquisition of Tribune Media Company (“Tribune”) by Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (“Sinclair”) (collectively, the “Applicants”) can be consummated as currently envisioned."

They point out how difficult it would be to disassemble and reassemble the deal if the court rules the discount does not apply and cite precedent for the FCC holding its decisions in abeyance pending relevant court decisions.

Both groups want the FCC to deny the deal when it does render a decision.

Washington — The seemingly endless review of the proposed Sinclair Broadcast Group-Tribune Media merger doesn’t show signs of being wrapped up anytime soon. And that’s fine with the cable and satellite operators opposed to the deal, who are looking to block it, and maybe also get some help from a federal court in the effort.

While the Federal Communications Commission has put the latest iteration of the proposed merger out for public comment — there have been five versions so far — the agency has set a seven-week comment period, slightly longer than most anticipated, which means it won’t be making a decision on the deal until at least mid-July.

That will make it more than a year since the FCC first put the deal out for initial comment.

Cable and satellite operators — and some other interested parties — want the FCC to deny the merger, arguing that it would give Sinclair untoward leverage in retrans negotiations.

The FCC did not restart its informal deal shot clock, currently stuck on day 167, even though it consolidated all five of the Sinclair iterations for comment and is expecting this to be essentially the final version. But it still wants more information on Sinclair’s proposal to be allowed to own two of the top four stations in Indianapolis and St. Louis. The FCC presumes such dual ownership of dominant stations violates its local ownership rules, but in a deregulatory move last fall, it eliminated the absolute prohibition and said it would look at such combinations on a case-by-case basis.

Until the FCC gets that additional information, however, it likely won’t restart the clock, and may not until all the comments are in by July 12.

Factoring In Delay Rumors

There was buzz last week that FCC chairman Ajit Pai could delay the Sinclair decision until after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rules on a challenge to the FCC’s return of the UHF discount. That move paved the way for the deal, but could unpave it if the court throws it out, suddenly making Sinclair’s merger with Tribune Media virtually impossible since it would represent more than 70% national audience reach (which is only reduced to below the 39% national ownership cap thanks to that discount).

Pai has been under pressure from Congressional Democrats to delay the decision, but made no promises other than to say the court case was “a factor.”

Adding to that buzz was a tweet by commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel: “The @FCC just asked for public comment on the Sinclair merger, speeding the way for regulatory approval. But the @FCC is still waiting on a court decision about how many stations one company can own. No way it should rush ahead now before the court acts. The rule of law matters.”

The FCC hardly seems to be rushing at the moment, given that it has allowed seven weeks for comments on the deal before it will be making any decision, and must wait a while after that to vet the comments that might come in at the eleventh hour.

The chairman’s office had no comment on Rosenworcel’s tweet or the decision’s timing; a spokesperson for the commissioner said she was not signaling any inside information about the chairman’s plans, but instead was continuing to say the FCC “should” wait until after the court weighed in.

A Hill source said the thinking by some was that the chairman might be letting the bureau staffers give the deal a fine-tooth-comb review, no matter the timing, given the ongoing inspector general investigation into the FCC’s handling of that merger review. And more than one source has pointed out that Sinclair’s deal tweaks have continued to draw criticism as insufficient to address concerns about retaining too much control of stations being spun off, making it harder — even for a deregulatory-minded commission — to sign off on the deal.

Not Moving Like Clockwork

As to the immovable shot clock, it is unclear exactly what the FCC is currently measuring, anyway. The merger has been in front of the FCC for almost a year, but the clock has remained stopped since Jan. 4 as Sinclair continued to re-file the deal to accommodate antitrust issues with the Justice Department and local ownership rule issues, with the FCC making deregulatory moves that allowed Sinclair to potentially own more stations. But Pai told Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) earlier this month that the reason the FCC had not restarted the clock in all that time was “because we have not had adequate information upon which to base a decision.”

The most recent request for further data on Indianapolis and St. Louis was yet another one of those inadequate information-prompted requests, so the clock remains stopped.

“The FCC is giving extraordinary scrutiny to the Sinclair merger, as it should,” said Adonis Hoffman, chairman of Business in the Public Interest, which backs the merger. “While the deal is transformative, the rationale for approval should rest on a realization that Sinclair — and every other big broadcaster — is in the fight of their lives against Netflix, Facebook, Apple and other [over-the-top services] that have bigger market caps and no restrictions on ownership. The market has changed in its fundamental form.

“The reality is that if you aggregated the top 10 broadcasters, they would not be as big as Netflix,” Hoffman added. “That is the fundamental issue and the sooner the FCC acknowledges it, the better for all stakeholders, including consumers and investors.”

Washington — Proposed media mergers are beginning to stack up in a Republican-controlled Washington, D.C., which might be a surprise were it not for the peripatetic course set by a pro-business president who has opposed mergers involving media companies he dislikes.

At press time the Sinclair Broadcast Group-Tribune Media deal was still in Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission limbo, with the former yet to weigh in and the latter yet to restart its shot clock on vetting the latest, and fourth, iteration of the transaction in Sinclair’s attempt to woo regulators and sweeten the deal with more or different station spinoffs.

Even if Justice signs off, the FCC will need to take most of six weeks more before it renders a decision, since it has signaled it will put out whatever proves to be Sinclair’s last, best offer for comment and replies.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit against an AT&T-Time Warner merger that many had expected to have trouble getting approval just wrapped up the argument phase, with the judge now mulling whether the combination is a sufficient threat to competition to justify blocking it, as the Trump administration has attempted to do.

Now joining the queue will be Sprint-T-Mobile. Key to that deal is whether regulators see the combination of the third- and fourth-largest U.S. wireless companies as reducing competition to the detriment of consumers, or as creating a stronger No. 3 “un-carrier” to the dominant ex-Bells, Verizon and AT&T.

The FCC's Inspector General late last year agreed to open an investigation into FCC chair Ajit Pai's handling of the Sinclair Broadcasting-Tribune Media merger and related media ownership deregulatory decisions.

That is according to Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, who sought the IG investigation last fall.

Pallone was concerned that Pai had improperly pushed for various deregulatory moves, such as restoring the UHF discount and loosening local ownership restrictions, to benefit Sinclair, whose Tribune purchase was a big beneficiary. He said the IG is also investigating whether the dereg was "coordinated" with Sinclair.

Related | broadcastingcable.com: FCC Seeks More Evidence of Sinclair Deal Claims

Pai has said the review has been by the book, and he has long argued for deregulating broadcasting and that the UHF discount should be looked at in tandem with the 39% ownership cap, including whether an analog discount should replace it, though he has also suggested the UHF discount was an anachronism.

"For months I have been trying to get to the bottom of the allegations about chairman Pai’s relationship with Sinclair Broadcasting,” Pallone said in a statement and to The New York Times, which first reported of his confirmation of the investigation. “I am particularly concerned about reports that Chairman Pai may have coordinated with Sinclair to time a series of Commission actions to benefit the company. I am grateful to the FCC’s Inspector General that he has decided to take up this important investigation.”

Related: Demand Progress Wants FCC IG to Investigate Pai Over Sinclair Deal

FCC spokespeople were not available to comment on the status of that investigation or what the threshold for investigating a complaint is, though the FCC website outlines the factors the IG considers in agreeing to investigate.

Back in November, joined by Overnight and Government Reform Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Pallone asked FCC inspector general David Hunt to investigate whether Pai had "taken improper actions to benefit Sinclair Broadcast Group."

At the time, an FCC spokesperson called the request part of an effort by Democrats to target Sinclair over its perceived conservative political views, and branded the allegations a baseless attempt to distract from the merits of the deal.

It is something of a chicken and egg issue. Did Pai help Sinclair by deregulating as expected, or did Sinclair anticipate that deregulation and time its Tribune deal to capitalize on it?

Pai's spokesperson said back in November of the request for an investigation: “Unfortunately, this request appears to be part of many Democrats’ attempt to target one particular company because of its perceived political views, an effort that dates all the way back to 2004 when Ranking Member Pallone, Ranking Member Cummings, and other Democrats demanded that the FCC investigate Sinclair based solely on the content of a documentary they didn’t like and that hadn’t even aired. Any claim that chairman Pai is modifying the rules now to benefit one particular company is completely baseless. For many years, chairman Pai has called on the FCC to update its media ownership regulations -- one of which dates back to 1975. The Chairman is sticking to his long-held views, and given the strong case for modernizing these rules, it's not surprising that those who disagree with him would prefer to do whatever they can to distract from the merits of his proposals.”

Related: Wheeler Says FCC Bent Rules to Help Sinclair

Pai has rolled back a number of decisions of his predecessor, Tom Wheeler, that he opposed and criticized at the time they were approved, including 2014 guidance on how the FCC would treat joint sales agreements and sharing arrangements between noncommonly owned stations; restoring the FCC's UHF discount; and two proposals scheduled for a vote this week (Nov. 16) -- potentially eliminating or loosening some media ownership limits, and allowing for the rollout of ATSC 3.0 transmissions. The FCC also recently eliminated the main studio rule, which required broadcasters to maintain a studio in their community of license.

Pallone and Cummings pointed to the timing of decisions that impact Sinclair deals (such as its purchase of Bonten stations) and proposed deals (the Tribune acquisition), and said they wanted some answers.

Meanwhile, the FCC has stopped the informal shot clock on its vetting of the proposed Sinclair-Tribune merger while it awaits action by the Department of Justice. Sinclair has modified the deal in light of the FCC's deregulatory moves and in an effort to retain more stations. Likely if and when Justice signs off on that, or its modification of Sinclair's modification, it will need to be refiled with the FCC and put out for public comment.

WASHINGTON — Sinclair Broadcast Group is fighting for Capitol Hill support of its merger with Tribune Media. That, though, will be a mighty tough sell with Democrats in both the Senate and House, who are calling for an investigation of the FCC chair over what’s being criticized as a deregulatory aid package to the broadcasters in general, and Sinclair in particular.

According to a PowerPoint presentation slide deck obtained by Multichannel News, Sinclair has been positioning itself as being squeezed between two factions. On the one side, consolidated multichannel video programming distributors are disadvantaging broadcasters in key negotiations (read: retransmission consent). On the other, broadcast networks are chipping away at their bottom lines.

The American Cable Association, which represents smaller, independent cable MSOs, and satellite-TV provider Dish Network have been among those pushing back on the deal, saying it would give Sinclair undue leverage in retrans deals, particularly if the Federal Communications Commission allows it to own two of the top four stations in a market.

A Hill source confirmed that Sinclair had used the presentation to pitch the deal to Congress. Sinclair also took the unusual step of agreeing to debate its critics publicly on the Hill last week in a forum hosted by Georgetown Law, where the slide on relative market cap was very much in evidence (see chart).

Competitive, Regulatory Headwinds
Sinclair pitched the deal as “ensuring the future of free and local TV,” and counts the ways that MVPDs and media ownership rules pose a threat to that future:

● “Other media (cable, online, social) is taking local advertising dollars away from local TV stations.”
● “Unprecedented consolidation of content creators and distributors disadvantage broadcast in key negotiations.”
● “Outdated rules keep broadcasters artificially fragmented.”

It also made clear who it thinks is getting the short end of the retrans stick. “MVPDs seek to deny stations this important revenue stream by not paying fair value for our content,” it said in one slide. But it’s a safe bet Democrats on the Hill won’t quite see it all that way.

Even as Sinclair was pitching the deal to Democrats, the party leader on the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), was viewing the meld rather differently.

Joined by Oversight and Government Reform ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Pallone called for FCC inspector general David Hunt to investigate whether chairman Ajit Pai has “taken improper actions” to benefit Sinclair in the deal.

Related: Dems Seek Investigation of FCC Chair Over Sinclair-Tribune

Pattern of Preferential Treatment
Specifically, Pallone and Cummings want Hunt to determine whether the chairman’s actions show a pattern of preferential treatment toward Sinclair and whether there was inappropriate coordination, which would likely be any coordination between the FCC and the White House and Sinclair, as well as whether the use of nongovernmental email or social media in a series of interactions complied with the Federal Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Those requests came in a letter to Hunt dated Nov. 13, followed days later by a similar request from Senate Democrats.

The legislators indicated they were referring to what they said was the chairman’s “repeated refusal to respond to congressional inquiries about recent reports that he may have timed a series of FCC actions over the past year to financially benefit Sinclair and to assist in its attempts to purchase Tribune Media Co.” Pai’s office essentially said, “move along, nothing to see here,” and suggested the request was politically motivated.

“Unfortunately, this request appears to be part of many Democrats’ attempt to target one particular company because of its perceived political views, an effort that dates all the way back to 2004 when ranking member Pallone, ranking member Cummings and other Democrats demanded that the FCC investigate Sinclair based solely on the content of a documentary they didn’t like and that hadn’t even aired,” said a spokesperson for Pai.

Pai has rolled back a number of past decisions of his predecessor that he opposed, including 2014 guidance on how the FCC would treat joint sales agreements and sharing arrangements between non-commonly owned stations and restoring the FCC’s UHF discount.

It is in one sense a chicken-and-egg conundrum. Did Sinclair see the deregulatory handwriting on the wall and, naturally, take the opportunity to heavy up, or did the chairman take all those deregulatory actions in service of Sinclair?

“Any claim that chairman Pai is codifying the rules now to benefit one particular company is completely baseless,” Pai press secretary Tina Pelko said.

Sinclair/Tribune deal friends and foes clashed on Capitol Hill Wednesday at a debate and panel session hosted by the Georgetown Law’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy.

The forum did not break a lot of new ground, but there was some scorched earth, particularly when the issue of shared services and joint sales agreements came up. Sinclair deal foe Andrew Schwartzman suggested they were an end run around ownership rules and a "disgrace." Sinclair fans suggested that if they skirted the FCC rules, why did the FCC issue guidance on how to set them up. Because FCC staffers have been in the pocket of broadcasters for decades, Schwartzman shot back, to some audible breath-catching.

One bit of news, from Sinclair's Rebecca Hansen, was that of the potential buyers lined up to purchase any deal spin-off stations, if any are required as is likely, 20% are minorities.

Jim Winston, president of the National Association of Black owned Broadcasters, who was one of the panelists, signaled his hope was that the deal would be pro-diversity, at least in the sense of providing some opportunities for more black owned broadcasters.

The event, which featured a nearly full house audience--there were more bodies than box lunches, for example--also dealt more broadly with the necessity of media ownership rules in general. Winston said NABOB's past knee-jerk rejection of consolidation had morphed into less than that, citing the difference between the market caps of the largest broadcasters and the MVPD and online media company market caps that dwarfed them--Hanson came armed with a slide that illustrated that.

Hosting the debate was Gigi Sohn, distinguished fellow at Georgetown Law's Institute for Technology Law & Policy, and former counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. She suggested she had to call in some favors to get both sides on the dais.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who arranged for the room, made a late appearance to remind everyone that he opposed the merger and had called on Republican leadership to hold hearings on it in both the Judiciary and Commerce Committees--he is a member of both. He said the fact that none had been forthcoming on what he called a "profoundly important" deal to the public interest, no matter which way you looked at it, was "profoundly distressing," and reiterated his call for "close and searching congressional scrutiny."

The debate portion featured David Goodfriend, a backer of the Coalition to Save Local Media, which could be rechristened the Stop the Sinclair/Tribune Merger Coalition vs. Jerry Fritz, EVP at ONE Media, a joint venture controlled by Sinclair.

Initially it was to have been John Hane, Sinclair's counsel, but he was ill and Fritz, who is a former FCC official and Allbritton exec, agreed at the last minute to sub in.

The backdrop for the discussion was both the FCC's and Justice Department's ongoing vetting of the deal, but the FCC vote, scheduled for Nov. 16, to role back some media ownership regs, which rollback could mean fewer Sinclair stations would need to be spun off.

Goodfriend said that since broadcasters got a free monopoly form the government--spectrum, which they didn't pay for, and could sell for billions, along with a government-guaranteed monopoly on network programming for affiliated stations, and guaranteed carriage via must carry, the quid pro quo was that broadcasters had to serve the public interest, and that included free programming, local news, and viewpoint diversity.

He said Sinclair's history had been to buy stations, fire staff and centralize operations.

Goodfriend said that if broadcasters wanted to get out from under public interest regulations, it should give up all those benefits, as some in Congress (rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) in particular) have proposed and broadcasters have fought.

Fritz said that most broadcasters are not the original owners so did not get their spectrum for free, that they have rising programming costs thanks to competition with big-pocketed MVPDs and online players, and that consolidating is a way to gain the scale to fight what is an existential threat to broadcasters existence from having to compete with essentially unregulated entities.

Goodfriend and Fritz agreed on the importance of local broadcasting, but Goodfriend said that was why letting the broadcasters combine to form the largest--by a wide margin--broadcast group should be denied, and Fritts why it was in the public interest for it to gain that scale.

Fritz argued that the FCC did not need to be in the broadcast merger review business at all, and that it should be left to the Justice Department to do an antitrust review. He argues that the FCC definitions of diversity and competition were set years ago according to political calculations, rather than reflecting market realities.

He pointed to the FCC's decision to break up Allbritton's WJLA-TV Washington and the Washington Star newspaper decades ago. The result: The Star died, he said.

Fritz argues that the current ownership limits, which the FCC is poised to loosen, prevent broadcasters from gaining the scale on the local and national fronts, to compete. He said it was preposterous that regs from another century still ruled, borrowing from Washington Irving, suggesting it was time for Rip Van Winkle to wake up and "get over it."

During the panel that followed, Hanson suggested that if they had gotten their spectrum for free, they would be expecting a check for the billions Sinclair had spent to acquire it. She said broadcasters were using their "government benefits" to try create a financially solid business.

Goodfriend had said during the debate that Tribune did more news in its top three markets than Sinclair--his point was that the deal needed to be in the public interest, so that Sinclair should improve on that.

Eddie Lazarus, EVP and general counsel for Tribune, said that was because in its top markets, Tribune stations were indies that did not have network morning and evening news, so programmed their own, while Sinclair's were affiliates that had network news obligations.

Schwartzman took issue with Hanson's use of the term "our spectrum." He countered that it was the public's spectrum, which is why the FCC could ask for certain programming--say, the three-hour, educational, children's TV requirement, which was a response to Fritz suggestion that the government should not be in the business of telling broadcasters what kind of content to air.

Lazarus, responding to the point about broadcasters getting free carriage, pointed out that most of the stations at issue are not must carry, and that retrans stations have no guaranteed carriage. He also pointed out that there was no requirement that stations deliver local news, and some like Ion and religious stations, don't.

News, he said, is a differentiator, and expensive, which like paying for expensive sports, like the Mets and Yankees on Tribune's WPIX New York, need the kind of scale a merger will provide. He said without that, more high-value sports will move behind the pay wall.

The Coalition to Save Local Media, a group trying to block the Sinclair-Tribune merger, has added six new members, according to organizers, including a big union and leased access advocates.

The new members are the United Church of Christ (UCC), NABET-CWA (representing some 10,000 broadcast employees), the Parents Television Council, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Herndon-Reston Indivisible, and the Leased Access Programmers Association.

"The proposed Sinclair-Tribune merger would result in job cuts at dozens of stations across the country and would harm the ability of local stations to broadcast information vital to their communities in a responsible and unbiased manner," said NABET-CWA president Charlie Braico. "This merger is not in the interest of broadcast industry employees and is not in the interest of the American people."

Related: Tech Companies Ask Feds to Hit 'Delete" on Sinclair-Tribune

"The broad swath of organizations opposing this new proposed Sinclair merger demonstrates that people do not need to agree on policy to agree that a vibrantly competitive local media market place is essential for our society," said Cheryl Leanza, policy advisor to UCC

The Coalition to Save Local Media, whose founding members include the American Cable Association and Dish, has opened various fronts against the deal, including drumming up congressional opponents, calling on state attorneys general to weigh in against the deal, launching a national ad campaign and issuing periodic e-mail updates on the national opinion shows and commentary Sinclair stations are required to air.

Related: Four States' AGs Ask FCC to Deny Sinclair-Tribune Merger

Reps. David Price (D-N.C.) and Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) had been scheduled to join other members of the coalition, which includes cable and satellite operators worried about the retrans muscle of a combined Sinclair-Tribune, on Capitol Hill Tuesday (Nov. 7) to criticize the merger, which the coalition maintains jeopardizes localism, competition and viewpoint diversity, but the event was postponed "due to rain," according to the coalition.

Sinclair has said it needs to heavy up to compete with other, larger program distributors -- like cable and satellite and the Internet -- with less, or no, comparable regulatory constraints.

The FCC is on day 108 of its informal 180-day shot clock on merger reviews, having restarted that clock last week after pausing it to collect more comment on Sinclair's defense and explanation of the deal, including from NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, which did not give that defense good reviews.

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, has told the FCC that Sinclair's response to the commission's request for more information on how it would comply with its rules in the Tribune merger was insufficient and that without that added info the deal must be denied.

That came in comments to the FCC filed Nov. 2.

"Unless and until Sinclair presents a definitive plan for complying with the rules and the public has had an adequate opportunity to review and comment on that plan," NCTA said, "the Commission cannot approve this transaction and should immediately cease conducting its review."

Sinclair suggested to analysts in an earnings call this week that it may do some station swaps rather than divestitures in some markets, and that it was premature to talk about divesting any stations.

NCTA said the FCC can't properly vet the deal until Sinclair says exactly how it will comply with the existing rules, not as they might be modified in the proposed media ownership deregulation item, though that deregulation is expected to be voted on and approved at the FCC's Nov. 16 meeting.

"Sinclair should be required to show that it will comply with existing ownership rules without surreptitiously divesting stations to sidecars that they manage and control in all respects except on paper, or by carrying multiple “top four” affiliate signals on the same broadcast station as multicast signals," NCTA said.

If the FCC does approve the ownership rule changes, which would allow for smaller market duopolies and, at least potentially, owning two of the top four-rated stations in a market, and Sinclair amends the application to reflect that, NCTA also says that is the kind of substantial change that should prompt the FCC to re-notice the application, seek comment, and start a new shot clock. "Anything less would be a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act and the Commission’s public interest standard," NCTA said.

In in earlier comments, the FCC said Sinclair needed to provide more details, something the FCC also asked for.

The FCC's informal clock on the deal is at day 104, having restarted Nov. 2 after the commission paused it to give commenters, like NCTA, a chance to weigh in on Sinclair's response to the request for those details.

Attorneys general from four states have teamed up to ask the FCC to block the merger of Sinclair and Tribune.

The states are Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The joint filing comes at the same time the Coalition to Save Local Media was urging all the state AGs to weigh in against the deal.

Related: Sinclair Foes Try to Enlist AGs in Pushback

The AGs' principal beef appears to be the size of the deal, which would create the largest TV station group in the country reaching more than 70% of the national audience.

Saying they are the chief consumer protection officers in their states, the AGs argued that the deal "fails to further the public interest by allowing for increased consolidation that will decrease consumer choices and voices in the marketplace."

Because the deal will reduce consumer choices and threatens the "diversity of voices," they said, the FCC should block it, or at the least postpone a decision until the U.S. Court of Appeals rules on Free Press's legal challenge to the FCC's reinstatement of the UHF discount.

The AGs say they are looking out for consumers and that the deal will exacerbate problems they already see through thousands of complaints about video, internet and telecommunications services, including allegations of high prices and poor service.

Under FCC chair Ajit Pai, the FCC reversed a decision by the previous Democratic majority and reinstated the discount, which allows Sinclair or any other broadcaster to count only half of the audience of its UHF TV stations toward the 39% national audience reach cap.

Pai, who has suggested the discount may indeed by outdated -- it dates from analog days, when UHF signals were weaker than VHF -- has said it needs to be considered in concert with the 39% cap, which is why he says it was restored. Critics say it was to pave the way for the Sinclair deal, but Pai has consistently indicated broadcasters need fewer ownership restrictions in a digital world of rampant video competition from online, cable, satellite and telcos.

The four AGs clearly disagreed.

"To ensure that consumers have access to a variety of content, services and stations, the commission should reject this order or, at a minimum, allow the D.C. Circuit to conclude its review...before considering the proposed application."

Initial briefs in that case were filed in September.

The FCC has actually been considering the application for 104 days now. It stopped its informal 180-day review shot clock two weeks ago to allow for further comment, with the new deadline Nov. 2, the date of the AG's filing.

The Coalition to Save Local Media, which could as easily be called the "Coalition to Block the Sinclair-Tribune Merger," said it will be sending letters to attorneys general in every state that has a Sinclair or Tribune TV station, asking them to probe the deal.

The merger would result in the largest broadcast TV group at over 200 stations reaching over 70% of the country.

In the letter to California AG Xavier Becerra, for example (an example the coalition highlighted), the group said: "If the proposed merger goes through, Sinclair would own 14 stations across nine markets including acquiring new stations in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento. In Reno, Eureka, and Chico, the combined company would own more than one 'Big Four' station."

FCC rules prevent owning two of the Big Four affiliates in any market but FCC chair Ajit Pai has proposed allowing it on a case-by-case basis, and in any event the coalition cites a Sinclair executive saying the company did not expect to have to sell any stations.

Related: FCC Takes Wraps Off Media Ownership Proposal

"There are very serious issues surrounding the competitive effects of the Sinclair-Tribune transaction, and we urge the state of California to join DOJ’s investigation into the merger," the letter said. 

The coalition's members include cable and satellite operators and programmers that don't want Sinclair's retrans muscle to get any stronger or its footprint any larger, plus those who criticize the conservative bent of its national programming offerings and commentary, or oppose more media consolidation in general.

The other states getting their own versions of the letter are Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Washington, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

FCC chair Ajit Pai said he has circulated for a vote at the November meeting a media ownership item that would achieve major broadcast deregulation.

It would eliminate the newspaper-broadcast crossownership rules, the radio-TV crossownership rule, the eight-voices test for duopolies, the attribution rules for joint sales agreements (by concluding they serve the public interest), and "finally, finally," Pai said, establish an incubator program for new, diverse entrants.

Pai outlined the item at a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Wednesday (Oct. 25). The committee was prepared for the bombshell.

"It’s curious that this hearing is scheduled for today in particular — just one day before Chairman Pai is expected to make public at least one proposal that enriches a single company above others, and that would clear out any last obstacles to Sinclair Broadcasting’s purchase of Tribune Media Company," said ranking member Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.).

Pai has long signaled such deregulation was coming, likely before the end of the year, and broadcasters have long pushed for such deregulation, arguing it was designed for a marketplace without MVPD and online competition.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who was also at the witness table, said the proposal was to get rid of the best of broadcast regulations.

House Democrats on the panel suggested the dereg was yet another thumb on the scale for the Sinclair-Tribune deal.

A determined, almost combative, Pai said that the text of the decision would be published Thursday, calling it "news that's fit to print."

Republican FCC commissioner Michael O'Rielly suggested Friday (Oct. 20) that the Sinclair-Tribune merger doesn't deserve the blame or the credit for the potential -- and long-overdue, he added -- media ownership deregulation that could help Sinclair keep more of Tribune's stations.

FCC chair Ajit Pai has been accused of trying to put a thumb on the scale for Sinclair Broadcast Group, a charge he denies.

In a blog post updating some guidance he supplied last June, O'Rielly addressed the "elephant in the room," though treating the deal as the Voldemort-like merger that must not be named, primarily because commissioners are not supposed to weigh in on items in front of them, which, technically, he didn't.

"There is currently a merger pending before the commission that some argue will benefit from, and is the reason for, any changes to our media ownership rules," O'Rielly wrote. "While I make no comments regarding this, or any, merger application, let me be clear: this transaction is in no way the catalyst for FCC action on these issues.

"First, the statute requires the FCC review its media rules," he continued. "Having failed that, we now have pending petitions before us to reconsider the past shoddy effort. Second, I have been calling for media ownership reform since joining the commission and as a staffer in the U.S. Senate before that. It’s not a new position or reaction to a pending application. Instead, for the first time, we finally have a chairman receptive to these ideas."

The bulk of the blog was devoted to his assertion that it is time for the FCC to complete its long-overdue congressionally-mandated review of media ownership regulations, which means eliminating duopoly restrictions and cross-ownership bans for starters, but only for starters.

O'Rielly doesn't control the FCC's agenda, but he is one of the necessary majority votes for Republicans in any party line vote. He is also a former Hill staffer who says the FCC needs to get moving on the Quadrennial ownership review that has been a decade in the not-yet-making.

Critics of the Sinclair-Tribune merger have branded the FCC's decision to restore the UHF discount a favor for Sinclair. O'Rielly said he supported restoring the discount because its absence hurt broadcasters and because the FCC did not have the authority to eliminate the discount in the first place.

O'Rielly had some suggestions for that overdue media ownership reg review:

Define the broadcast market to include not only newspapers and TV and radio stations, as has traditionally been the definition, but MVPDS and OTT providers and websites and social media and streaming music services and satellite radio.

Once that marketplace is acknowledged, the debate can begin about what regs are needed on broadcasters awash in competition.

Among those it doesn't need, he said are cross-ownership restrictions on newspaper-radio, newspaper-TV, and radio-TV combos. As to the rules that limit multiple ownerships in a market, he said the duopoly rules are so last-century.

"To my friends who think we need regulations to ensure a diversity of viewpoints, here’s a newsflash: You are regulating the wrong market," O'Rielly wriote. "Today, with thousands of new options, how can the FCC justify maintaining this rule in its current form? In many markets, duopolies or even triopolies could strengthen the overall state of broadcasting and allow stations to concentrate more resources on bringing more and higher quality local content to their viewers."

NEW YORK — Broadcast station group stocks, on the rocks over uncertainty around potential deals and deregulation, could be on the rebound, Wells Fargo media analyst Marci Ryvicker said, and the resurgence could spell some bad news for cable operators.

Broadcast stocks had been on a roll late last year, when investors, buoyed by the election of business-friendly President Donald Trump, helped drive shares up 25% to 35% between Nov. 9 and the end of the year. When the benefits of one-party control over the presidency and Congress didn’t come as fast as expected, stock prices suffered.

Since the beginning of the year, shares in publicly traded station groups like Sinclair Broadcast Group, Nexstar Media Group, Tegna and Tribune Media have been relatively flat.

Ryvicker, speaking at the broadcast-centric TVB Forward conference, blamed the sluggishness on disappointment over the lack of movement on the regulatory front and a lack of substantial merger activity.

So far, only Sinclair’s pending $3.9 billion purchase of Tribune has emerged, and it has underwhelmed, she said, partly because of Tribune’s asset mix with several The CW and My Network TV affiliate stations and a small cable network, WGN America. “Wall Street did not like the Tribune stock,” she said. “They didn’t like the assets.”

A finished Sinclair-Tribune deal could help open the M&A floodgates, though, and continued deregulation, especially a relaxing of local ownership rules, should heighten the deal-making, Ryvicker said.

Bigger station groups could give broadcasters more muscle in retrains-mission-consent negotiations with cable operators. Ryvicker said retransmission prospects were not a cause for worry, and relationships between affiliates and their networks are strong.

Broadcast investors also have been spooked by developments outside the industry, particularly declines in pay TV subscribers. Pay TV and broadcast networks are separate industries and have separate issues, but they often trade in tandem, even with radio.

“Investors tend to invest in bundles,” Ryvicker said. “If they are nervous about media as a whole, it’s called a risk-off trade. They start trading everything and anything that is media related.”

Disney sparked jitters two years ago by saying its flagship sports network, ESPN, had shed about 3 million subscribers. That number has risen to between 5 million and 6 million and put pressure on the entire programming sector, not just pay TV networks.

Disney also faced the first test of ESPN’s power on Oct. 1, when its deal with Altice USA systems in the New York area was up for renewal. Altice was expected to reject Disney’s demands for higher rates and broader carriage, and to allow ESPN and Disney’s ABC station in the market to go dark.

Ryvicker sees pay TV erosion continuing, estimating total pay TV subscribers will fall from 97 million in 2016 to 82 million in 2022.

While that could hurt broadcasters, who rely on retransmission-consent revenue from operators to fill their coffers, Ryvicker thinks the slack will be more than taken up by virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) such as Hulu, DirecTV Now and Sling TV, which have begun to include broadcast stations in their offerings. In that same time frame, she estimated, vMVPD subscribers will rise from 1.86 million to 15.9 million.

“Broadcast is in the bundle,” she said, and retransmission-consent revenue will be “totally fine.”

FCC chair Ajit Pai says there has been no inappropriate coordination between the Donald Trump White House, Sinclair and the FCC over the Sinclair-Tribune merger, and that there has been no pattern of preferential treatment shown Sinclair in a deal whose vetting has been by the book and on a timetable common to such transactions, including under other regimes.

That came in a Sept. 15 letter in response to the House Energy & Commerce Committee Democrat’s own letter last month expressing concern that that was the case.

Pai said his meeting with the President—there have been two of them—were on the order of a job interview in one instance and a second meeting after he had the job, at neither of which was any issue involving Sinclair Broadcast Group discussed.

Related: FCC Seeks More Evidence for Sinclair-Tribune Deal Claims

He did say he had met with Sinclair three times since the November election, but in only one meeting were pending issues discussed and that one was followed by the requisite ex parte notification.

Pai also said two members of his staff had met with Sinclair execs as well, with an ex parte filed for the one meeting for which it was required.

Citing various news stories about rule changes, White House meetings, and more that the legislators suggest add up to big questions about whether the independent agency has been truly independent, the Democrats, led by House Energy & Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), had suggested that the chairman had expedited the review of the Sinclair-Tribune merger to allow Sinclair to grow quickly, despite calls for extension of time and for Sinclair to provide more information to quantify or validate its public interest claims for the deal.

They also pointed to the FCC's approval of Sinclair's purchase of Bonten stations shortly after revoking a 2014 Media Bureau guidance on the FCC's close scrutiny of deals involving sharing agreements.

As to the timeline for the deal review, Pai said the FCC established the same comment period as for other significant TV station mergers, including the $4.6 billion merger of Nexstar and Media General approved under his Democratic predecessor, Tom Wheeler.

Related: Wheeler Says FCC Bent Rules to Help Sinclair

He called the pleading cycle consistent with precedent and not expedited. He also said that, in regard to the suggestion that his restoration of the UHF discount was an effort to facilitate the deal, no one at Sinclair or Tribune or their representatives informed him of a possible deal before the vote to reinstate the discount. He also pointed out that the Media Bureau on Sept. 14 had sought further information on the deal. he did not mention, though he could have, that the request was essentially to provide that hard evidence of public interest benefits that critics, including Pallone, said was lacking.

Sinclair's response isn't due until Oct. 5, after which the public will have an opportunity to comment on that information. The Sinclair deal was filed in June.

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, has stopped short of seeking outright denial of the Sinclair-Tribune merger, but it has major problems with it and suggests the FCC should consider disallowing new duopolies, even where they don't violate rules, and joint retrans negotiations among commonly owned Sinclair-Tribune stations.

That came in its response this week to Sinclair's lengthy defense of the public interest benefits filed with the FCC Aug. 22.

NCTA says the FCC should, at a minimum, review the deal under current media ownership limits, not hoped-for changes to the rules, and "consider" conditions based on "past conduct and unprecedented size.

NCTA said the deal would create a broadcast colossus with "exceptional leverage in business dealings with multichannel video programming distributors."

One potential sore spot with MPVDs could be the after-acquired clauses that would allow Sinclair to boost the retrans payments to Tribune stations to the level of Sinclair stations, which would mean MVPDs ponying up more for stations they already argue are inflating their prices.

The FCC is currently considering petitions to deny the $3.9 billion deal, which would give Sinclair over 200 stations and over 70% national audience reach. Sinclair says that scale will help it compete against large and largely les regulated MVPDs and over-the-top providers.

But NCTA says that size requires regulatory "guardrails" to protect consumers and competition, and not just the FCC-required divestitures to square with current ownership rules.

Among those guardrails would be: "(1) Extend the ban on joint retrans negotiations [among noncommonly owned TV stations in a market] to the commonly owned Sinclair-Tribune stations, or, alternately, force it to divest where the deal would create a new duopoly [not just where that duopoly would violate the current duopoly rules]; (2) prevent Sinclair-Tribune from negotiating retrans on behalf of multiple stations in a DMA; (3) require Sinclair to give up a top-four network affiliation where it currently carries a second network on a multicast stream; (4) extend the FCC's consent decree with Sinclair another seven years and apply it to the combined company.

In July 2016, Sinclair agreed to pay almost $10 million to settle FCC investigations into whether it violated prohibitions on coordinated retransmission consent negotiations. The FCC said that nothing in the record raised substantial questions about Sinclair's basic qualifications to be a licensee and the company did not admit to any liability.

NCTA said the FCC's public interest standard requires it to look at the deal's upstream and downstream impacts -- on programmers and MVPDs -- and consider merger-specific (italics NCTA's, since they have long argued against non-merger-specific conditions in deals).

Sinclair has promised to abide by the FCC rules, but NCTA wants the FCC to make it clear that there be no effort, through waivers or other means, "to exceed the existing ownership rules unless and until the Commission actually changes those rules."

One way NCTA said Sinclair-Tribune could "evade" local duopoly rules is by using the FCC's channel-sharing rules under the incentive auction repack order to let its low-power TV's--more than 25-- in markets where it also owns a full-power to share spectrum and thus boost their reach to that of the full-power. LPTVs don't count towards duopoly restrictions.

NCTA also wants Sinclair to have to refile an amended application for the transfer of licenses if the FCC changes the ownership rules, which would mean a new comment period and restarting the FCC's 180-day shot clock on the deal vetting (currently the clock is on day 56).

WGN America continued to build its lineup of scripted series with the acquisition of three crime-themed series set to premiere in 2018.

The three series include Shoot The Messenger, a crime thriller starring Elyse Levesque (Orphan Black) and centering on the complex relationships between crime reporters and the police; Pure, which chronicles a secretive subculture through the eyes of a conflicted, good-hearted man trying to protect his family and preserve his faith; and 100 Code, which stars Dominic Monaghan (Lost, Lord of the Rings Trilogy) and the late Michael Nyqvist (John Wick, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) as cops from different parts of the world teaming up to investigate the deaths of several women in New York and Stockholm.

The acquisitions come on the heels of the network’s recent pickup of the Anna Pacquin-led drama series Bellevue.The series acquisitions also continue WGN America's move to build its scripted lineup since the cancellation of Undergroundand Outsiders earlier this year as a result of plans to reallocate resources away from the scripted series business as part of Sinclair Broadcast Group’s pending merger with WGN America parent Tribune Media.

“WGN America continues to deliver one of the best crime lineups in television,” said Gavin Harvey, president, WGN America in a statement. “These four new original series build upon our strong slate of compelling programming that offers nonstop mystery, thrills and suspense for the growing number of fans of the crime genre.”

Merger and acquisition activity in the entertainment, media and telecommunications industry rose in the second quarter from a year ago, although the value of those deals dropped slightly, according to PwC.

The quarter saw 232 deals, up from 216 deals a year ago but down from the first quarter's 255 deals.

Related: Viacom Pulls Out of Bidding for Scripps Networks

The deals announced in the second quarter were worth $18.8 billion, down from total deal value of $21.3 billion in Q2 2016. In the first quarter, mergers and acquisitions were worth $10.4 billion.

Big deals in Q2 included Sinclair Broadcasting Group’s $3.8 billion bid to acquire Tribune Media, RCN’s $2.4B merger with WaveDivision Holdings and Verizon’s acquisition of Straight Path Communications, worth $2.3 billion.

“Deal activity in 2017 continues to outpace 2016 as market participants look to secure their footing in the digital value chain and position themselves in anticipation of regulatory change,” said Bart Spiegel, partner, media and telecommunications deals.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.