InsideSources

A Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission raised questions Thursday about actions the agency has taken under its Republican leadership to facilitate the $3.9 Sinclair-Tribune merger of the nation’s two largest TV broadcasters.

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel says she has serious concerns about the transaction that would see Sinclair Broadcast Group, with its reputation for disseminating hard-right news packages to local stations across the U.S., take control of Tribune Media. The merger would let Sinclair control over 130 stations affiliated with the four biggest broadcast networks in the U.S. — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. The stations stretch across more than 100 markets, including 40 of the top 50 in places like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and political battleground states such as North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

“I am concerned the commission is gearing up to approve a transaction that will hand a single broadcast company the unprecedented ability to reach more than 70 percent of American households,” Rosenworcel told the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington Thursday. “It hasn’t happened yet. But there are disconcerting signs.”

According to Rosenworcel those signs include FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s decision to resurrect the ultra-high frequency (UHF) discount — an FCC loophole in Congress’s national broadcasting cap limiting any one company from reaching more than 39 percent of the national audience. The discount allows broadcasters to count only 50 percent of the audience reached by stations broadcasting in UHF, a format considered weak and unreliable when the discount was enacted in the 1980s. The evolution of digital TV technology has eliminated the technological difference, and the Obama administration closed the loophole last year.

Sinclair, the largest owner of broadcast stations in the country, hovered near the cap when rumors swirled in March it may buy Tribune, the second-largest broadcaster. The FCC reinstated the UHF discount a month later, lowering Sinclair’s audience reach on paper to 24 percent and setting the stage for it to buy Tribune. Two weeks later the deal was announced, and if approved, will take Sinclair from 173 stations to 215 and allow it to reach 72 percent of American households.

“Before I returned to the Commission, the agency inexplicably resurrected an outdated and scientifically inaccurate system for tallying station ownership, known as the UHF discount,” Rosenworcel said. “It also reversed an effort to investigate joint sales agreements. Both steps helped speed the way for this transaction—which would combine two broadcasting giants: Tribune and Sinclair.”

Democrats aren’t the only ones concerned about the deal. Numerous conservative media outlets have expressed skepticism, including Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, who met with Rosenworcel Wednesday to discuss Pai’s effort to get rid of a rule that requires TV and radio stations to operate studios in or near the communities they broadcast in, according to Politico. Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler warned the rule would be a giveaway to Sinclair.

“I’m not alone in my concerns about the concentration that will result from this proposed transaction,” Rosenworcel said. “I’m not alone in my fear that it will do harm to the time-tested principles of diversity, localism, and competition. There is opposition across the political spectrum.”

The Democratic commissioner said she couldn’t “put it better than the Newsmax Group, which has warned that ‘a free and diverse press, a bedrock principle of American democracy,’ will be irreparably harmed by this merger.”

Even Pai, who Democrats accuse of bending over backwards to clear regulations for the merger, is growing frustrated with Sinclair’s boldness, according to RedState. The conservative news website reports a “media executive, one of a raft of right-wing media moguls who opposes the merger, says Sinclair Broadcasting has irked Pai and the FCC by treating it as a done deal, and displaying a ‘cocky’ attitude.”

The FCC chief was reportedly dissatisfied after the agency asked Sinclair for more information about how it would comply with FCC rules that forbid broadcasters from owning more than one of the top stations in any market. Sinclair’s reply lacked specifics, stating only it hired a consulting firm to ensure compliance.

“That, says the top conservative media executive, is being interpreted as a snub to Pai and a failure to treat his concerns as real and legitimate — and as Sinclair banking on its supposed goodwill with the Trump family to guarantee the merger proceeds with no major changes,” the report reads.

Follow Giuseppe on Twitter

More conservatives in media and on Capitol Hill are quietly voicing opposition to the $3.9 billion Sinclair-Tribune merger, according to right-leaning political blog RedState.

The “political news blog for right of center activists” reports “influential conservatives inside and outside of Congress are beginning to scrutinize a proposed merger” between Sinclair Broadcast Group, the nation’s largest TV broadcaster also known for its right-leaning political news bias, and Tribune Media, the second largest.

If the transaction is approved by the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission, Sinclair will control more than 200 stations, including over 130 affiliated with the four biggest broadcast networks in the U.S.: ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. The stations stretch across more than 100 markets, including 40 of the top 50 in places like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and political battleground states such as North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

That would let Sinclair reach 87.3 million of the 119.6 million homes that Nielsen estimates have TVs — more than 70 percent of all U.S. households, far exceeding Congress’s national broadcasting cap limiting any one company from reaching more than 39 percent of the national audience.

While Republicans appointed by President Donald Trump, like FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, have paved the way for the merger by enacting loopholes and lifting regulations, “Tea Party senators elected in the 2010 and 2012 cycles and senators from some Great Plains States are proving more skeptical of the deal,” and “at least one highly-influential, leading conservative legal and political mind outside of Congress is now pushing senators to oppose the merger,” according to RedState.

Their opposition stems chiefly from concerns about Sinclair’s history of gutting local news stations, its post-merger potential to raise prices for content transmitted over cable and satellite providers, and the outsized share of the market for conservative news it could acquire.

While left-leaning critics have taken issue with debunked Sinclair content from former Trump White House surrogate Boris Epshteyn and racially and sexist-charged editorials by former former Sinclair executive Mark Hyman, “conservatives cite a more crony-capitalist concern,” the blog says.

“For years, broadcasters have argued for special regulatory treatment based on their role in providing heavily localized news,” it reads. “The argument goes that Sinclair may be trying to claim the upside of that treatment while dispensing with the content that entitles them to it, thereby having its cake and eating it, too.”

Cable trade groups and satellite provider Dish Network warned the FCC the merger will let Sinclair raise prices to retransmit its content, and that those increased costs will ultimately be passed on to consumers.

“[C]onservatives are concerned that post-merger, Sinclair could use its market position and vastly expanded insider knowledge of what deals cable and satellite companies will and will not cut, to argue for higher retransmission fees . . . a potential anti-trust problem,” RedState reports.

Fellow conservative news outlets The Blaze, Newsmax, and One America News Network are concerned the deal will give Sinclair an unfair advantage in the conservative news space. The combined Sinclair-Tribune audience would reach 2.2 million American households, more than prime time cable Fox News programs like “The Five” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

“[C]onservatives are hearing from upstart right-of-center media companies who claim the Sinclair merger would damage their ability to build market share and a customer base, and thereby harm the prospects for conservative media building a toehold in the overall left-leaning U.S. media sphere,” the blog says.

Those outlets say they already face a bias on popular digital destinations for news like Facebook and Google, and told RedState “pitting them against an even-bigger broadcasting giant could be a death blow.”

Sinclair argues allowing broadcasters to merge is the only way they can compete with online streaming platforms like Netflix, that its resources will supplement local newsrooms with nationally generated content, and that critics of the media conglomerate’s political content run afoul of the First Amendment.

The FCC said in September it wants more information from Sinclair for its review of the merger, like how the combined companies plan to deal with TV ownership restrictions (since it would still exceed the audience cap by more than 6 percent even after a recent FCC-revived loophole known as the UHF discount is applied) and rules limiting how many top stations any one broadcaster can own in a single market. The transaction is also being reviewed by the Department of Justice.

Follow Giuseppe on Twitter

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission says he has “no apologies” to give over the fact his deregulatory agenda has smoothed the road to the Sinclair-Tribune merger — the largest in television broadcast history.

Ajit Pai, the chairman of the federal agency charged with regulating telecommunications providers, told Democrats in the House of Representatives his actions since taking control of the FCC in January weren’t “fueled by a desire to help any particular company,” in a letter dated last week.

“Whether I have been pushing for the revitalization of AM radio or fighting to ensure that broadcast television stations were treated fairly in the incentive auction proceeding, my actions have been motivated by my belief that a strong over-the-air broadcast service advances the public interest,” Pai told lawmakers.

The letter replied to a lengthy list of questions and concerns raised by lawmakers on the left about a series of deregulatory rules changes directly facilitating the merger of the two largest TV broadcasters in the U.S. They also highlighted a number of meetings between Pai and Sinclair executives before the merger was announced, and others with Trump, who made a deal with the broadcaster for favorable coverage during the 2016 election season.

Pai told lawmakers some of the meetings with Sinclair were scheduled before the November election, while others were social and FCC matters weren’t discussed. The content of the others were documented and filed according to FCC rules, including one in January discussing shared-service agreement regulations, which Pai relaxed a month later.

During his meetings with Trump, Pai insisted they didn’t discuss “any pending FCC proceedings” and he does “not recall” Sinclair ever being mentioned.

“[N]either Sinclair nor Tribune nor anyone acting on behalf of either company informed me or my office of a possible transaction involving these companies before the commission voted to reinstate the UHF discount,” Pai wrote. “In terms of other White House officials in the current administration, I do not recall having any discussions with any of them pertaining to the Sinclair Broadcast Group, and I am not aware of anyone in my office having such discussions.”

The ultra-high frequency (UHF) discount is an FCC loophole in Congress’s national broadcasting cap limiting any one company from reaching more than 39 percent of the national audience. The discount allows broadcasters to count only 50 percent of the audience reached by stations broadcasting in UHF, a format considered weak and unreliable when the discount was enacted in the 1980s. The evolution of digital TV technology has eliminated the technological difference, and the Obama administration closed the loophole last year.

Sinclair, the largest owner of broadcast stations in the country, hovered near the cap when rumors swirled in March it may buy Tribune Media, the second-largest. The FCC reinstated the UHF discount a month later, lowering Sinclair’s audience reach on paper to 24 percent and setting the stage for it to buy Tribune. Two weeks later the deal was announced, and if approved, will take Sinclair from 173 stations to 215 and allow it to reach 72 percent of American households.

Pai defended the agency’s timeline for reviewing the transaction, which he said was consistent with other recent mergers, and addressed other concerns raised by Democrats like the approval of next-gen TV technology. The new digital TV format, patented by Sinclair, could collect swaths of data on users. The chairman said adopting the technology, dubbed next-gen TV, will be voluntary and that the agency will ensure private consumer information is protected.

The FCC announced last week it wants more information from Sinclair for its review of the merger, like how the combined companies plan to deal with TV ownership restrictions (since it would still exceed the audience cap by more than 6 percent) and rules limiting how many top stations any one broadcaster can own in a single market. The transaction is also being reviewed by the Department of Justice.

Follow Giuseppe on Twitter

Sinclair, the U.S.’s largest broadcaster, forces a Rhode Island TV news station to run heavily biased coverage favoring President Donald Trump, according to a weekend local newspaper story that broke days after the Federal Communications Commission said it’s taking a deeper look at Sinclair’s proposed merger with the second-largest U.S. broadcaster.

The Providence Journal’s Saturday front-page story says WJAR-TV, the state’s most-watched television station (acquired by Sinclair in 2014), started “quietly” broadcasting hard-right “must-run” news packages with a pro-Trump slant a year ago.

“Sinclair is poised to become the nation’s largest owner of TV stations and, with its recent hire of former Trump aide Boris Epshteyn, viewers can expect to see more of the chain’s political programming,” the Journal article reads.

That’s because Sinclair is pursuing a $3.9 billion buyout of Tribune Media, a transaction that would let Sinclair reach 87.3 million of the 119.6 million homes that Nielsen estimates have TVs — more than 70 percent of all U.S. households. The potential expansion is pushing critics to shine a light on Sinclair’s political bias and the content it distributes to its 170-plus stations across the country.

Such programs include the Terrorism Alert Desk, a daily news update about supposed-terrorist activity that once featured a segment on burkinis, news pieces from Epshteyn — Sinclair’s chief political analyst with a history of propagating unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud — and editorials by former Sinclair executive Mark Hyman in which he dubs liberals “snowflakes” and describes political correctness as a “nasty cancer epidemic.”

In Rhode Island, Sinclair’s must-run content is pushing lifetime-WJAR viewers to change the channel.

“Gloria Crist, a 54-year-old actress from Tiverton, says she’s stopped watching the station,” the Journal reports. “Rep. David N. Cicilline condemned the practice, saying: ‘Rhode Islanders rely on our local news being produced in Rhode Island, not directed by a national conglomerate for local broadcasters to deliver.'”

The report comes days after the FCC announced it’s seeking more information in its review of the merger, also subjected to review by the Department of Justice.

“In order for the commission to review the applications and make the necessary public interest finding,” FCC Media Bureau head Michelle Carey wrote to Sinclair Friday, “we require additional information, documents, and clarifications of certain matters discussed in the applications and other information submitted to the commission.”

Critics and Democrats in Congress accuse Trump’s FCC of facilitating the merger with a round of deregulatory rules changes benefitting Sinclair, which forged an agreement with the Trump campaign for favorable coverage during the 2016 election season according to Politico.

The most significant was the change to a federal cap blocking any broadcaster from reaching more than 39 percent of the national audience. The outdated technical loophole was revived by Trump’s appointee to lead the FCC, Ajit Pai, who met with Sinclair and Trump personally on multiple occasions after the election, before the rules change and the deal was announced.

A group dedicated to opposing the merger, the Coalition to Save Local Media, said the agency’s pursuit of more information implies it’s “taking steps to give the Sinclair-Tribune merger the scrutiny it requires by asking the applicants questions raised by interested parties as well as members of Congress that have gone unanswered for far too long.”

“Now Sinclair-Tribune must justify how this merger is in the public interest and how the combined company plans to comply with ownership rules,” the group said Friday. “While our coalition eagerly awaits Sinclair-Tribune’s response, sharp scrutiny must be given to any and all evidence they provide.”

Merger’s falling under FCC jurisdiction must meet a higher bar than at DOJ by proving the transaction will benefit the public. Members of the coalition and others who have filed with FCC formal requests to deny the merger — including Dish Network, T-Mobile, cable companies, and even fellow conservative media outlets like The Blaze and Newsmax — say Sinclair has already failed that test.

They warn if approved, Sinclair will have leverage to raise prices for its content, gut local news rooms, shape news content to meet is political bias and slow the conversion of some broadcast airwaves to spectrum for cell towers, necessary to meet the growing demand for high-bandwidth mobile applications like video streaming.

Sinclair argues the merger is the only way broadcasters can compete with streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.

Follow Giuseppe on Twitter

The Boston Globe joined a growing coalition of local papers this weekend urging the federal government to deny the pending $3.9 billion Sinclair-Tribune merger, a transaction combining the two largest broadcast TV station owners in the country, one with a right-leaning political agenda.

An editorial by Globe staff in the paper’s Sunday edition described “right-leaning” Sinclair’s bid to buy Tribune, creating a broadcast giant reaching more than 70 percent of U.S. households — more than Fox, CNN or MSNBC — as “a matter of urgent concern” for “the state of our democracy.”

“An expansion of that size isn’t in the public interest, and federal regulators should move to block it,” Globe staff wrote. “If they fail to act, state attorneys general should step up and attempt to stop the merger.”

But according to the Globe and others, Sinclair’s well-documented history of shuttering local news stations and replacing their content with conservative-leaning editorials masked as news is even more concerning.

“There are daily missives, for instance, from the ‘Terrorism Alert Desk’ — including one piece on the French controversy over ‘burkinis,’ apparently deemed a terrorism-related story simply because it involved Muslims,” the paper says.

Another 2016 segment “suggested voters shouldn’t back Hillary Clinton in part, because of the Democratic Party’s proslavery history” and the broadcaster has hired hired Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump White House surrogate with a history of debunked claims, as its chief political analyst.

That’s cause for even greater concern in swing states like North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where Sinclair already controls stations. The Trump campaign made a deal with Sinclair for better coverage of Trump during the 2016 campaign, according to Politico.

While the Globe acknowledges there are “plenty of competing, left-leaning views in our increasingly crowded mediascape,” it says “local news is a special case.”

“Local broadcasters have something of a captive audience, and federal regulators should be diligent about ensuring a diversity of views,” the editorial reads.

If the deal is approved Sinclair will control more than 200 stations, including over 130 affiliated with the four biggest broadcast networks in the U.S.: ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. The stations stretch across more than 100 markets, including 40 of the top 50 in places like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, where the Chicago Tribune said in August the deal “doesn’t pass the smell test.”

In addition to “consolidating, or outright dumping, homegrown news, weather, sports or other programming” to appease investors and “Sinclair’s hard-right tilt, which manifests itself in conservative commentaries and stories that management insists its stations carry on a recurring basis,” the Tribune warns the real threat is Sinclair’s relationship with the White House.

The deal violates a federal cap blocking any broadcaster from reaching more than 39 percent of the national audience, the result of an outdated technical loophole revived by the Trump administration’s Republican appointee to lead the Federal Communications Commission. Ajit Pai, the commissioner now leading the FCC, met with Sinclair and Trump personally on multiple occasions after the election, before the loophole was revived and the deal was announced.

“Ask yourself: Did this sudden change of heart come because Sinclair’s brass is tight with the Trump administration and its network is home to some presidential surrogates and supporters?” the Tribune editorial reads.

They’re not the only local papers voicing opposition. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch warned in May under the deal “Sinclair would own or control stations that account for more than 40 percent of the Fox Network audience” and “give Sinclair considerable leverage over Fox and cable companies in negotiations over retransmission of local stations’ signals.” Satellite and cable providers brought similar concerns to the FCC, saying those costs will ultimately be passed on to consumers.

The Des Moines Register said in June Sinclair “promises to be a localized and more insidious form of Fox Cable News after its acquisition of Tribune, as its conservative brand of local news media will be present in two major network affiliated stations in several markets across the country.”

“Consider the impact that Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia) had on radio broadcasting after it began gobbling up stations and replacing locally produced public affairs programming with syndicated conservative talk shows, such as Rush Limbaugh,” a former Iowa State University journalism professor wrote for the Register.

But not all papers agree. An August editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch said such dire warnings were raised during the first part of the George W. Bush administration, when the FCC considered easing rules limiting the ability of companies to own both newspapers and television stations.

“The argument back then — just as the internet took off — was that joint ownership of a newspaper and television station in one local market would severely limit the sources of news and opinion available to the citizenry,” the Times-Dispatch recalled.

Those efforts failed, and according to the Times-Dispatch, forfeited newspapers “an opportunity to merge with television stations to strengthen local journalism.”

“Some of the same people who 15 years ago opposed more reasonable rules on cross-ownership of TV and newspapers are today bemoaning what they see as a decline in local journalism,” the Virginia paper said.

Follow Giuseppe on Twitter

Another well-established conservative news outlet is asking the Federal Communications Commission to deny the pending $3.9 billion Sinclair-Tribune merger, a potential right-leaning broadcasting behemoth that would reach the largest television audience in America.

The Blaze, the online, television and radio news outlet founded by conservative political pundit Glenn Beck, filed its opposition to the merger in the last round of comments sought by the FCC this week on whether to approve the deal.

In a joint filing with One America News Network — a cable network backing the Trump administration’s Republican agenda — and several other groups, The Blaze’s chief financial officer Misty Kawecki said Sinclair-Tribune failed to prove the transaction will benefit consumers — a requirement for FCC approval.

Sinclair-Tribune initially submitted just three pages to the FCC outlining how the merger would be in the public interest. After coming under heavy criticism from major providers in the satellite, cable and wireless industries, public interest groups, a former FCC commissioner, and even comedian John Oliver of the hit HBO series “Last Week Tonight,” Sinclair replied arguing critics failed to demonstrate the merger wasn’t in the public interest.

The Blaze and others said mergees have it backwards, and that according to FCC standards, it’s incumbent upon Sinclair-Tribune “to prove to the commission that the proposed transaction is in the public interest.”

“[Sinclair-Tribune] want to flip the burden of proof because they simply cannot justify this transaction under the public interest standard,” reply comments filed this week by The Blaze and others read.

Newsmax, the conservative news website whose founder, Christopher Ruddy, is a close associate of President Donald Trump, opposed the transaction in the first round of comments.

“[T]he level of media concentration proposed by this transaction will homogenize the content available to U.S. consumers, eliminate unique viewpoints and reduce press diversity, especially in the delivery of local news,” the outlet’s filing reads.

It and others warn if the deal gets regulatory approval, Sinclair would own more than 200 television stations, including over 130 stations affiliated with the four biggest broadcast networks in the U.S.; ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. That would let Sinclair, which has received criticism for its right-leaning editorial news content, reach 72 percent of American households and own TV stations in 108 of all 210 TV markets, including 40 out of the top 50.

For The Blaze, Newsmax, and One America News Network, that means major competition for conservative audiences and ad dollars. The combined Sinclair-Tribune audience would reach 2.2 million American households, more than prime time cable Fox News programs like “The Five” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

The New York Times reports staving off the merger could also create a timely opportunity for conservative outlets to expand.

“With a president in the White House who has consistently tried to discredit the mainstream news media, and with Fox News, the longtime king of conservative programming, still powerful but having lost some of its biggest stars, conservative news outlets have a unique opportunity to extend their influence,” the Times reported in August.

Craig Aaron, the president of the consumer advocacy organization Free Press, a group opposed to the merger, goes on to tell the paper “[e]ven though they may be ideologically aligned, Newsmax and others see Sinclair is going to be so big that they’ll swallow up ad dollars and starve the conservative competition.”

That could be especially true for The Blaze. Deadline reported late Thursday The Blaze laid off more than 20 percent of its staff at the website and Beck’s production company Mercury Radio Arts. Beck attributed the cuts to “structural challenges,” adding “[w]e are not PBS. No government institution is going to write us a giant check.”

Critics of the merger also warn Sinclair will have the power to raise prices for its programming across the U.S., incentive to scale back local news broadcasts and hinder efforts to repurpose some broadcast airwaves into bands for mobile wireless.

Sinclair argues allowing broadcaster to merge is the only way they can compete with online streaming platforms like Netflix, that its resources will supplement local newsrooms with nationally generated content, and that critics of the media conglomerate’s political content run afoul of the First Amendment.

Follow Giuseppe on Twitter

The companies at the heart of the Sinclair-Tribune merger shot back at critics of the transaction in arguments posted by the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday, calling them “untethered” from the reality that broadcasters must merge to compete with online video platforms like Netflix.

The arguments come after weeks of comments on the Sinclair-Tribune merger from the likes of Dish Network, T-Mobile, Newsmax, Public Knowledge, and others poured into the FCC asking the agency to deny the merger. The lengthy list of complaints included Sinclair’s post-merger ability to reach 72 percent of U.S. households (far exceeding Congress’s national audience cap of 39 percent), leverage to raise prices for its content, and history of gutting local news rooms in favor of hard-right editorial content.

Sinclair dismissed those comments as “transparent” and “naive” arguments by petitioners “either trying to use this proceeding to stifle competition for [their] own economic interests” or “still living in a pre-cable, pre-internet, pre-smartphone world, untethered from the economic realities of the current media market.”

Chief among Sinclair’s defense is the growing market for online video streaming offered by Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and others, who’ve gone from transmitting content online to spending billions on developing original content of their own. For broadcasters to survive and compete, Sinclair argues, they’ll have to join forces.

“Today, the local broadcast industry is significantly challenged by declines in its primary revenue stream, local advertising, as well as other profound changes in the media ecosystem . . .  such as Apple, Google, Netflix and Facebook, into the programming space,” Sinclair’s filing reads.

The broadcaster notes Apple’s commitment to spend $1 billion on original content in the next year, while Netflix and Amazon plan to spend $7 billion and $4.5 billion. Sinclair, already the largest broadcaster in the U.S., says the market is already so consolidated that any other broadcaster seeking to buy Tribune, the second largest, would run into the same complaints critics have leveled at it.

Beyond the fact over-the-top video distributors like Google aren’t interested in buying a broadcaster, the $3.9 billion Sinclair-Tribune merger would ensure tens of millions who can’t afford a Netflix subscription can still get broadcast television for free, according to the mergees.

Sinclair reasserted that with the UHF discount in place — an outdated technical loophole revived by the Trump administration allowing the combined companies to exceed the national audience cap — the Sinclair-Tribune merger won’t be in violation of FCC rules. Mergees also plan to sell any other stations necessary to comply with rules forbidding ownership of two stations in the same market (though Sinclair’s found ways around those rules before by selling stations to employees and family).

The filing also tackles claims by Dish Network and cable providers that Sinclair will try to boost the fees satellite and cable providers must pay to retransmit broadcaster content — price hikes they say will ultimately be passed on to consumers’ monthly bills.

“Petitioners’ retransmission consent arguments are self-serving and unsupported,” Sinclair said, noting the same arguments have been raised in the recent past during the Nexstar-Media General merger overseen by the FCC. “The Commission correctly rejected these arguments then, and they are no more persuasive here.”

The extreme conservative political news bias exhibited by Sinclair prompted one former FCC commissioner to dub the broadcaster “the most dangerous company most Americans have never heard of” and received a recent scathing review by HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” But Sinclair dismissed those concerns on paper — even those coming from fellow conservative news outlets like Newsmax — arguing the national content it distributes to its locally owned subsidiary stations allows them to focus more on local stories.

“[T]hose stations in Tribune markets will be able to direct more resources to covering local news stories,” Sinclair says. “Petitioners’ allegations of harm are entirely unsupported by facts and are merely based on hearsay and innuendo (and a number of them raise obvious First Amendment viewpoint discrimination issues).”

The companies told the FCC their merger would guard against the deterioration of local news outlets like newspapers brought on by the internet.

“In short, the opponents to this deal have things backwards,” the companies argue. “Far from disserving the public interest, the combination of Tribune and Sinclair will advance that interest by strengthening local broadcasting’s ability to compete in the modern media landscape and by staving off the devastating pressures that have decimated the newspaper business.”

They asked the FCC to “dismiss or deny the petitions in full” and “grant consent to the proposed transaction.” Neither the Department of Justice nor the FCC have given the merger antitrust or public interest OKs yet. But congressional Democrats opposed to the transaction have called attention to a series of deregulatory actions by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai that have directly facilitated the merger.

Follow Giuseppe on Twitter