CAT BROOKS (CO-HOST): You brought up the fact that [Sinclair Broadcast Group is] about to expand. So, currently they're in really conservative markets, but there is a pending merger with Tribune Media Group, which would expand them to 42 more stations, including cities like Los Angeles and New York. Can you get into the weeds a little bit about what should prevent that merger from happening, but what is -- under Ajit Pai, who's the head of the FCC [Federal Communications Commission], what is likely to occur?
PAM VOGEL: Right, so, yeah, right now they're mostly in sort of battleground states, mid-sized cities, and this merger would, again, allow them to kind of break into the biggest media markets in the country. They're not currently in most of the larger cities, so, exactly. They'll be coming to New York, LA, Chicago. I actually don't think they're coming to the Bay area, but they're already in some nearby media markets. And the reason why this should not be allowed is because they're already sort of operating at the FCC's current cap for the percentage of TV households that they can reach as a single owner of TV stations.
But the FCC has made several rule changes since Ajit Pai took over about a year ago that have made the merger possible. So they sort of -- they reinstated this sort of outdated, wonky-math type of rule that basically allowed for them to calculate that ownership cap differently so that Sinclair was free to pursue this acquisition. Actually, after the FCC changed that rule, it was a matter of weeks before Sinclair announced that they were going to acquire Tribune. That would not have been possible previously.
And since then, the FCC has done a few more things to make things easier for Sinclair. In October, they repealed another rule called the Main Studio Rule, which required local TV stations to have a studio within the community that they serve. That's no longer a requirement, which means that, as Sinclair continues to sort of sweep up more and more stations, they can consolidate resources in a way that's pretty unprecedented. They've already kind of previewed -- they do this with a couple stations now. But there could be a reality soon where your local news -- you tune into to your local ABC station, or CBS, or NBC, and you don't know it's owned by Sinclair, but you are watching anchors deliver the news to you without realizing they don't even live in the same state as you do. They might live in a totally different state and be recording news, like a nightly newscast, for three different markets every night.
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There have been a lot of studies that talk about how people trust local broadcast news more than almost any other source because they recognize the faces, they're people from their community. And so I think a transformation, consolidation on that front specifically, it carries some unique dangers.
