The FCC has issued “Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture” regarding the ownership of WPIX that imposes heavy fines on Nexstar and Mission Broadcasting for ownership violations. The ruling also orders Mission to sell the station within the next year.
The FCC is fining Nexstar $1,224,790 and Mission $612,395 for the violations. It is also seeking to remedy the ownership issues by having Mission either sell WPIX in New York to an independent third party that has no relationship to Nexstar or to have Nexstar buy WPIX and divest other stations so it is under the ownership cap.
“Under the Communications Act, as amended by Congress in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2004, the Federal Communications Commission is prohibited from allowing a company to own or control broadcast stations that in total reach more than 39 percent of the national television audience,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “The record here reflects a situation where a company exceeds this threshold. Unless and until Congress changes this law, it is the responsibility of this agency to enforce it.”
In response to the ruling Nexstar Media Group, Inc. released a statement from its chairman and CEO saying “we are extremely disappointed in today’s action by the Federal Communication Commission regarding our relationship with WPIX-TV and we intend to dispute it vigorously. We believe the FCC has been misled by the often distracting noise in the media ecosphere and that it has completely misjudged the facts. The facts are that Nexstar has always complied with FCC regulations and that its relationship with WPIX-TV under a Local Marketing Agreement (LMA) was approved by the FCC in 2020, when WPIX-TV was purchased by Mission Broadcasting, Inc. Nexstar believes that joint operating, shared service, and local marketing agreements like those in which it is engaged are vitally important to maintain a competitive media marketplace and to enable broadcasters to continue investing in local news, investigative journalism, and other services that they uniquely provide to the communities in which they are located.”
Mission Broadcasting also attacked the ruling. A statement from its president, Dennis Thatcher said "Mission Broadcasting has had a nearly 28-year track record of owning and operating commercial television stations with nary a blemish on our record. We have prided ourselves on conducting our business in an open and transparent manner with the Federal Communications Commission and other governmental agencies. Mission was granted the license for WPIX-TV by a full vote of the F.C.C. in December 2020. We believe that this attempt at `revisionist history' by this F.C.C. is unwarranted and we plan to contest this ruling to the full extent the law allows."
The controversy dates back to the acquisition of the Tribune TV stations by Nexstar in 2018 and Nexstar's subsequent decision to sell WPIX to Mission Broadcasting to reduce its station ownership footprint to comply with FCC rules.
The FCC approved ownership transfer and a local market agreement that allows Nexstar to operate the station but in the current ruling cited features of the Nexstar/WPIX relationship that indicated Nexstar is exercising too much control over WPIX.
The relationship between Mission and Nexstar has also proved controversial with pay TV operators during retransmission consent negotiations. On March 20, a Federal judge in SDNY dismissed a lawsuit filed by DirecTV alleging antitrust violations by Nexstar, Mission and White Knight Broadcasting.
