Word: fcc
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...struck back. Beginning last September, it filed a series of petitions, in which it challenged the pending purchases. It charged in part that the new venture, SF Broadcasting, might violate the fcc's foreign-ownership rules. It was paper warfare, but it did real damage. nbc's challenge may kill the Green Bay deal, which has a drop-dead date of April 28, and it has stalled fcc approval of SF Broadcasting's $229 million agreement to buy the other three NBC affiliates...
...widened its attack still further. In November it sought to block Fox's effort to buy TV stations in Philadelphia, Boston and Denver, arguing that the FCC could not approve these purchases until it had resolved the SF dispute. Next, citing the 99% ownership disclosure in David Honig's N.A.A.C.P. case, nbc filed a formal request that the commission clarify its rules on foreign control, thereby boosting pressure on the commission to examine Murdoch's ownership. "What are you doing this for?" Murdoch demanded in a telephone call to Robert Wright, president of NBC. "The record is clear...
Murdoch wrote directly to FCC chairman Reed Hundt, declaring his "personal anguish" at the whole affair. But he backed his tears with bullets. That same day his Washington attorney, William Reyner Jr., also wrote to Hundt, at one point accusing NBC parent General Electric of having engaged "in a pattern of illegal activity, including criminal fraud, antitrust and anticompetitive conduct." He listed a series of examples, including GE's 1992 guilty plea on four counts of fraud associated with a sale of aircraft engines to Israel. These sins, Reyner continued, called into question "NBC's basic qualifications to continue...
Right now, however, the clearest loser may be the FCC itself. Any decision-from blanket exoneration to convening a hearing-is likely to draw fire. In its zeal to restrain public comment on the case, the commission in December issued a sweeping gag order-so extensive that it had the perverse effect of stirring more attention and igniting criticism of the FCC's self-conscious handling of the case. In a scathing critique, James Quello, a veteran commissioner, even noted that the fcc's general counsel told commission staffers they could go to an nbc Christmas party...
None of which is lost on Murdoch. A vague smile plays across his face. Sitting back on a couch in his New York office beside a wall of silently flickering TV screens, Murdoch says, "I take some comfort in that I would imagine the fcc themselves have got to come up for all sorts of scrutiny from this new Congress." He argues that it doesn't matter in the end how much equity News Corp. owns because he is an American and indisputably controls News Corp. So, he reasons, even the contested 24% share of the Fox stations is ultimately...