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| Will Trump allow them to intervene? |
For I can’t help but think this is merely some
rhetoric meant to make it appear as though federal regulators of the public
airwaves are actually doing something when in reality they’re inclined to do as
little as possible to interfere with the deal that would make Sinclair the
largest collection of broadcast properties in the United States.
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION head Ajit Pai
issued a statement implying his entity is not prepared to put the rubber stamp
to the deal that would give Sinclair control of some 230 broadcast properties –
including those founded by Tribune Company that have long thought of themselves
as “Chicago’s Very Own.”
Yet I can’t get around the concept that Pai got
the FCC post through appointment by President Donald Trump. He’s a political
appointee, and the idea of putting all these broadcast properties under single
control of a company with a history of believing their ideologue ways are what’s
proper would be the kind of thing Trump would approve of.
So is Pai serious in suggesting Monday that an
administrative law judge conduct hearings into the deal? I suppose if we learn through
Trump’s Twitter rants that Pai has been dismissed for gross incompetence, then it
means Pai meant what he said.
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| Soon to be history? |
Otherwise, I suspect it’s a form of rhetoric
that merely delays the inevitable, which in the case of Chicago and WGN
television and radio means they’re not really locally-run broadcast properties
any longer.
THE DAYS OF thinking that Channel 9 and 720-AM
were somehow places on the broadcast spectrum that carried the unique
perspective of the Second City are no more.
I suspect it’s just a matter of time before the
Chicago stations are forced to air as part of the “local” newscasts the
commentaries produced out of the corporate offices in Maryland.
The ones that have given Sinclair its reputation
within the world of news broadcasting as being ideologically tainted.
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| The new wave? |
My guess is that the first will be on an issue
in which Trump wants to get on his high horse and rant and rage about how
erroneous Chicago is. Sinclair would probably want to use their new Chicago
stations (currently, the closest to Chicago they have to a broadcast property is the ABC
affiliate in Springfield, Ill.) to tell Chicago viewers how wrong they are!
WHICH MAKES ME wonder if the character is
destined to change so drastically that the properties are ruined. Similar to
how back in 1984, the Chicago Sun-Times was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s media
entity and the character was altered so drastically that circulation and the
paper’s image plummeted – in ways that make some people think Rupert still has
a hand.
Even though in reality, he sold the newspaper
within two years (so he could buy WFLD-TV in Chicago).
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| What would Garfield Goose think of new employer? |
That deal was because of federal laws
controlling just how many properties one can have in a single market, similar
to the ones limiting the overall number. Which is why Sinclair is supposedly
working out side deals to “sell off” some of the stations they’re about to buy.
One of those is the WGN properties. The Chicago
Tribune reported that Atlantic Automotive Corp. of Towson, Md., will buy the
Chicago stations.
THEN, THEY WOULD work out an agreement by which
Sinclair would handle the actual work of programming and maintaining the stations
for them. Because, after all, what would an out-of-state car dealership know
about Chicago or broadcasting?
These are the very issues Pai hinted cause the
FCC to have reservations. But is the FCC really capable of thwarting a deal if
the entity being “harmed” is the one that Trump persists in calling the “enemy
of the people?”
Although one often suspects even Trump doesn’t
fully believe the nonsense he spews whenever he speaks or Tweets like a twit.
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