Gray TV takes over CBS in Anchorage, AK

[effseesee 101]

On 9/4/2021 at 1:08 AM, CircleSeven said:

 

They going to say anything to not pay this fine. But if they didn't do anything wrong, why did they later move the CBS over to the LP (K22HN) & have it on the subchannel on KTUU? They could have done this in the first place.

 

It'll be interesting to see whether this $500K+ will stand. We'll see what happens......

 

 

I believe the response says that Gray moved CBS to the LD after meeting with FCC staff. It’s close to guaranteed that Gray won’t pay the $500K fine. This will eventually end up in a federal courtroom, where the FCC has a terrible track record. Gray will end up paying nothing or a tiny fraction of the original fined amount.

[nathannah 2401]

As we discussed the Gray fine...GCI was coming close to their 'drop dead' date of September 3 to light up KTVA again or have the license auto-cancelled.

 

They did; although it's not noted on the network's affiliates list, 11.1 is currently running Rewind TV to keep the license going. Whether this is just for a week to warehouse the license, or just until the sale goes through eventually, is not known.

[CircleSeven 1955]

Big Follow-Up.

 

The FCC is following through with the $518,283K fine. Gray said it will appeal through the courts.

 

Here's the forfeiture paper.

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by CircleSeven

[Megatron81 256]

Does that mean Gray can't have CBS in Anchorage anymore and they have to sell it?

[CircleSeven 1955]

5 hours ago, Megatron81 said:

Does that mean Gray can't have CBS in Anchorage anymore and they have to sell it?

Nope. The FCC ordered Gray to just pay that fine. No divestitures.

 

 

Edited November 7, 2022 by CircleSeven

[CircleSeven 1955]

On 11/1/2022 at 4:32 PM, CircleSeven said:

Big Follow-Up.

 

The FCC is following through with the $518,283K fine. Gray said it will appeal through the courts.

 

Here's the forfeiture paper.

 

And Big Bump.

 

Gray has now filed that lawsuit to the 11th Circuit over that fine.

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by CircleSeven

[DirtyHarry 727]

31 minutes ago, CircleSeven said:

And Big Bump.

 

Gray has now filed that lawsuit to the 11th Circuit over that fine.

 

 

As I understand it, the FCC's mandate is pretty broad. If it doesn't think that warehousing network affiliations is in the public interest, as long as it involves a TV signal, it can stop a sale. As we have seen in other parts of the media, warehousing properties usually results in an inferior product for the end consumer.

 

I hate to sound like a lefty, but you can see what's going on out there. Laissez-faire and libertarianism has its limits. 

[mre29 1513]

In that c

2 hours ago, DirtyHarry said:

As I understand it, the FCC's mandate is pretty broad. If it doesn't think that warehousing network affiliations is in the public interest, as long as it involves a TV signal, it can stop a sale. As we have seen in other parts of the media, warehousing properties usually results in an inferior product for the end consumer.

 

In that case, I'd like to know its opinion of the ownership situations in Lima, OH, and Victoria, TX.

 

[nathannah 2401]

3 minutes ago, mre29 said:

In that c

 

In that case, I'd like to know its opinion of the ownership situations in Lima, OH, and Victoria, TX.

 

Much different as it's across low-powers, unlike the Anchorage situation. And those are pretty much 'RTC affiliates' merely existing to Hoover up RTC revenue, not Anchorage where there should be competition.

[DirtyHarry 727]

1 minute ago, mre29 said:

In that c

 

In that case, I'd like to know its opinion of the ownership situations in Lima, OH, and Victoria, TX.

 

 

Lima hasn't been shutting down stations. They just bought a few LPTVs and are running them better because they have economies of scale. The FCC also doesn't care if a full power station owns LPTVs in the same market. I don't know what Anchorage is like, but they are a larger DMA and might be able to support more than one owner in that market. Lima is a small DMA, I think 190 or something like that. However, they're over the air population is large, I think 800,000 or a million maybe.

[T.L. Hughes 881]

6 hours ago, CircleSeven said:

And Big Bump.

 

Gray has now filed that lawsuit to the 11th Circuit over that fine.

 

One of the issues that Gray contends in their suit is that the fine “…violates [the] First Amendment because it “penalizes” Gray’s programming choices without furthering the “legitimate” government interest that any such regulation of speech must further.”

 

There are other corporate-filed lawsuits against government actions that resulted in apparent First Amendment violations (e.g., Disney’s challenge to Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature’s efforts to strip the company of its oversight autonomy over the Reedy Creek district encompassing Disney World over the company’s criticism of the “Don’t Say Gay” law, TikTok’s challenge to Montana’s recently signed law that seeks to prohibit from operating in the state starting in January) which make strong arguments that the motives behind them violated the company’s 1A rights.

 

Unlike those cases, Gray’s argument equating the KTVA-KYES affiliation transfer doesn’t seem like it makes a good argument of a 1A violation, since it doesn’t seem to meet the viewpoint/content-based discrimination criteria that would be considered a definite 1A violation. I fail to see how transferring a network affiliation is a programming decision meets that threshold. They’re better off trying to argue that the FCC was selective in issuing the fine by not making similar decisions regarding similar non-license asset transactions, including those that have happened around that time and since (like those involving Sinclair and NPG). In challenging the fine the first time, Gray cited its 2014 acquisition of the former KHAS’s NBC affiliation and the transfer of the network to KSNB, which it necessitated by its purchase of Hoak and Gray’s existing ownership conflicts with that station in Hastings–Grand Island–Kearney, to form a Top-4 duopoly with KOLN/KGIN, which the FCC didn’t fine.

Edited May 25, 2023 by T.L. Hughes

[Yankees4life 558]

38 minutes ago, T.L. Hughes said:

One of the issues that Gray contends in their suit is that the fine “…violates [the] First Amendment because it “penalizes” Gray’s programming choices without furthering the “legitimate” government interest that any such regulation of speech must further.”

 

There are other corporate-filed lawsuits against government actions that resulted in apparent First Amendment violations (e.g., Disney’s challenge to Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature’s efforts to strip the company of its oversight autonomy over the Reedy Creek district encompassing Disney World over the company’s criticism of the “Don’t Say Gay” law, TikTok’s challenge to Montana’s recently signed law that seeks to prohibit from operating in the state starting in January) which make strong arguments that the motives behind them violated the company’s 1A rights.

 

Unlike those cases, Gray’s argument equating the KTVA-KYES affiliation transfer doesn’t seem like it makes a good argument of a 1A violation, since it doesn’t seem to meet the viewpoint/content-based discrimination criteria that would be considered a definite 1A violation. I fail to see how transferring a network affiliation is a programming decision meets that threshold. They’re better off trying to argue that the FCC was selective in issuing the fine by not making similar decisions regarding similar non-license asset transactions, including those that have happened around that time and since (like those involving Sinclair and NPG). In challenging the fine the first time, Gray cited its 2014 acquisition of the former KHAS’s NBC affiliation and the transfer of the network to KSNB, which it necessitated by its purchase of Hoak and Gray’s existing ownership conflicts with that station in Hastings–Grand Island–Kearney, to form a Top-4 duopoly with KOLN/KGIN, which the FCC didn’t fine.

Did Gray get their lawyers from the Dollar Store?

 

I can't see how getting fined for grabbing this station violated 1st amendment rights. Of course, they should argue for FCC picking and choosing who to punish for transactions like these