Apollo Hasn't Demonstrated Cox, Northwest Deals' Public Interest Benefits, Say Commenters
Apollo Global Management hasn’t adequately demonstrated public interest benefits of its proposed purchase of stations from Northwest Broadcasting and Cox, the American TV Alliance (ATVA) commented and anticonsolidation groups petitioned to deny, in filings posted in docket 19-98 Monday (see…
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1903060078). The FCC should force Apollo to provide public interest justifications for the top-four duopolies and “quadropolies” that would result from the deal even though most of those combinations involve low-power TV stations or multicast channels, said ATVA. MVPD groups pushed the FCC to regulate top-four combinations of LPTV stations in recent comments on the 2018 quadrennial review. “If faced with an application for a full-power triopoly or quadropoly, the FCC would dismiss it out of hand,” ATVA said. Apollo seeks to use after-acquired clauses to raise the retransmission consent rates of all the Cox stations to match the higher rates currently enjoyed by the Northwest stations, ATVA said. “These price increases appear to be the main purpose of the transaction and why Apollo asked the Commission to approve its Northwest acquisition before its Cox acquisition.” Since it's a private equity firm, Apollo and subsidiary Terrier Media Buyer could “implement aggressive cost cutting strategies” that could include newsroom layoffs and homogenized programming, said Common Cause, Common Cause Ohio and the United Church of Christ jointly. Apollo’s filings “outlining vague putative public interest benefits and “corporate status as a private equity firm” don’t “suggest any commitment to localism,” the groups said. Darryl Beauford -- a viewer of Cox's WSB-TV Atlanta -- said the deal should be rejected because he was denied access to the station’s public file when he tried to view it in 2015 after complaining about the station’s content. “The conduct of WSB-TV is unbecoming of a trustee of the Community based on the fact that purposely, with full intention, violated this Core Regulation.” Beauford said. Cox and Apollo didn’t comment.