Jun 22, 2022
Original Art - Little Orphan Annie Daily Comic Strips (Apr22th1987/Feb19th1988)
Art by Leonard Starr
Tribune Media
seen from Türkiye
seen from South Korea
seen from Brazil
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia
seen from Australia
seen from Uruguay
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Yemen
seen from France
seen from Latvia
seen from Yemen
seen from United States
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seen from Australia
seen from Germany
seen from Estonia
seen from Portugal
seen from Paraguay
Original Art - Little Orphan Annie Daily Comic Strips (Apr22th1987/Feb19th1988)
Art by Leonard Starr
Tribune Media
Trump: FCC should help Sinclair because it's a "much needed Conservative voice."
Pai in the face
President Donald Trump yesterday lashed out at the Federal Communications Commission over its vote to block Sinclair Broadcast Group's acquisition of Tribune Media Company.
"So sad and unfair that the FCC wouldn't approve the Sinclair Broadcast merger with Tribune," Trump tweeted.
A combination of Sinclair and Tribune "would have been a great and much needed Conservative voice for and of the People," Trump wrote. Trump contrasted the Sinclair/Tribune denial with the FCC's approval of Comcast's purchase of NBCUniversal, which happened in 2011.
"Liberal Fake News NBC and Comcast gets approved, much bigger, but not Sinclair. Disgraceful!" Trump wrote.
Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC's only Democrat, offered a one-word response to Trump's tweet: "Disagree."
Trump had said during his election campaign that his administration would look into breaking up Comcast and NBC, but he hasn't acted on that threat as president.
The FCC last week voted unanimously against approving the Sinclair/Tribune deal. Sinclair needed to divest some stations in order to stay under federal ownership limits, but FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the company's proposal to divest certain stations "would allow Sinclair to control those stations in practice, even if not in name, in violation of the law."
The FCC didn't block the merger outright, but it referred the deal to an administrative law judge. Mergers usually don't survive that legal process.
The Trump Happens blistering lukewarm take:
In case you’re just joining this story, Ajit Pai’s FCC has spent the past year weakening ownership rules to make the Sinclair/Tribune merger a done deal without too much pain for the poor beleaguered billionaires. Pai has earned a dubious reputation of making sure that corporate interests triumph over public concerns, so when he met with a Sinclair representative immediately after the inauguration, it was obvious shenanigans were in the air, to the point that the FCC Inspector General was forced to take a look.
(Pictured: Pai cosplaying as a “fun uncle” while telling you that killing net neutrality is radical, dudes.)
This was supposed to be a easy slam dunk, but the Sinclair Group got cocky. While they did sell off a few stations to clear what regulatory hurdles remained, at least four of the sales included provisions that gave them a pretty big role in running (and pocketing some of the profits of) the stations that they technically no longer owned. They would still maintain stations’ studios and run their websites, but more importantly they still would control the news programming and advertising sales. That implies that the stations would still be required to air the infamous “must run” editorials, and the local anchors would still be required to humiliate themselves on behalf of their “former” corporate overlords. It’s almost like Sinclair wouldn’t be going away at all!
And that’s where Pai drew the line. More to the point, that’s when we found out that Pai can draw a line at all. Sinclair lost the trust of the most anti-regulatory, pro-industry FCC we’ve had in recent memory by a unanimous vote.
Which brings us to this asshole, and his stock price-manipulating assholery.
Obviously, the only thing Trump knows about the Sinclair Group is that they give his administration the best blowjobs in town. But ignorance has never stopped him from having an opinion before.
LOL, Tribune might get $1 Billion without buying a thing #SoMuchWinning
At least someone is holding Sinclair, Trump’s Propaganda Machine, accountable.
A proposed merger that would have created the biggest U.S. television company collapsed Thursday when Tribune Media announced a $1 billion lawsuit against Sinclair Broadcast Group on grounds that the conservative television giant engaged in “misconduct” and precluded U.S. government approving of the deal.
Tribune said it would terminate the $3.9 billion deal and accused Sinclair in a lawsuit of engaging in “belligerent and unnecessarily protracted negotiations” with the FCC as well as the Justice Department, which reviewed the merger over its potential effects on competition. By failing to divest television stations as regulators recommended, Tribune said, Sinclair had “breached” the companies' merger agreement, which required them to make their best efforts to secure federal approval.
Peter Kern, Tribune’s chief executive officer, in a statement Thursday. “This uncertainty and delay would be detrimental to our company and our shareholders. Accordingly, we have exercised our right to terminate the Merger Agreement, and, by way of our lawsuit, intend to hold Sinclair accountable.”
Don’t Mistake Propaganda for Journalism
Unfortunately, Sinclair viewers are still going to be subjected to Fake Scripted News. #RepublicansComplicit #VoteThemAllOut
This is the media merger that will make Trump’s path to re-election much easier. You need to know about this.
Sinclair Broadcast Goup: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver [source]
“Sinclair Broadcast Group is the largest owner of local TV stations in the country. That's alarming considering that they often inject political views into local news.“
Joint bid for TV station operator aims to trump rival offer from Sinclair Broadcasting
Matthew Garrahan at Financial Times:
Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox is in talks with Blackstone, the private equity firm, to launch a joint bid for Tribune Media, which owns a portfolio of US television stations, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.
Tribune has a market capitalisation of $3.2bn. Fox and Blackstone hope to trump a rival offer from Sinclair Broadcasting, another owner of US television networks, and plan to form a joint venture for the deal, with Blackstone providing the cash and Fox injecting its own portfolio of stations.
The move paves the way for greater consolidation in the TV and radio industries.
The lobby group, National Association of Broadcasters, with Ajit Pai’s help are going to “Make Monopolies Great Again”. Now Pai is working with USTelecom (AT&T, Verizon...) to Kill Net Neutrality.
Bannon found the right guy to Dismantle America.
The Sinclair Broadcast Group is Trump’s Ministry of Truth. Sinclair requires its stations to air pro-Trump commentary. Broadcasting and printing #FakeNEWS 24/7
One long-standing rule repealed Thursday prevented one company in a given media market from owning both a daily newspaper and a TV station. Another rule blocked TV stations in the same market from merging with each other if the combination would leave fewer than eight independently owned stations. The agency also took aim at rules restricting the number of TV and radio stations that any media company could simultaneously own in a single market.
A major beneficiary of the deregulatory moves, analysts say, is Sinclair, a conservative broadcasting company that is seeking to buy up Tribune Media for $3.9 billion.
“This has a huge impact,” said Andrew Schwartzman, an expert on media law at Georgetown University. He added that the decisions will “reduce or eliminate” the need for Sinclair to sell off many stations to receive regulatory approval for the deal.
“This merger would never have been possible without a series of actions to overturn decades-long, settled legal precedent by Chairman Pai,” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and 14 other lawmakers wrote in a letter. The letter added that Pai has “signaled his clear receptiveness to approving the Sinclair-Tribune transaction and in fact paved the way for its consummation.”
A sample of the propaganda Sinclair requires its stations to broadcast:
How a Conservative TV Giant Is Ridding Itself of Regulation, NYTimes
Shareholders for Tribune Publishing approved a $630 million takeover bid by NYC-based hedge fund, Alden Global Capital, known for expanding profits by slashing newsrooms. The unions representing several Tribune newspapers including the Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune and Hartford Courant, opposed the deal sparking concerns over the future of local papers. NPR’s David Folkenflik joins.
THEN, THEY WRITE IT OFF AS A LOSS AND GET A TAX BREAK ON IT, EVERY YEAR...JUST MORE BULLSHIT IN A BOX. TAX LAWS MADE FOR THE RICH BY THE RICH AND THE GOPHERS.
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