WASHINGTON—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. have expressed “serious concerns” about the proposed merger of Standard General with Tegna to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel 

Tegna, which manages 64 stations across 51 domestic markets, agreed in February to be acquired by Standard General for $8.6 billion including debt. The merger is currently being reviewed by the FCC and has faced a number of objections from lawmakers and public advocates and unions. 

In a letter to the chairwoman, the lawmakers pointed to the accelerating consolidation of local news outlets, and asked the FCC to closely review the pending transaction to ensure that it is in the public interest and promotes the FCC’s values of localism, competition and diversity on the airwaves.

In the letter, Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Pallone wrote: “By law, the FCC is required to determine whether the proposed transaction will serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity.  After reviewing the public record, we are concerned that this transaction would violate the FCC’s mandate by restricting access to local news coverage, cutting jobs at local television stations, and raising prices on consumers.

“Localism is a core tenet of broadcast journalism that serves the public interest – but we fear the proposed transaction could jeopardize that important goal,” the letter continued. “The proposed new owners previously told investors they believe Tegna’s local stations have too many employees, a potential signal of their intent to lay off local journalists. At the same time, they have described piping in news produced in Washington, D.C., to fill time on local newscasts as a public interest benefit, potentially leading to fewer local journalists and less local news.

“We urge you to fully examine the concerns raised by public comments – and shared by many of our colleagues in the Congress – about this proposed transaction, consistent with the applicable laws and regulations.”

In response, Standard General defended the merger, saying that the acquisition will "will yield significant public interest benefits without any countervailing public interest harms, including creating the largest minority-owned and female-led broadcast station group in U.S. history."

The company said Tegna will "actually be smaller" after the transaction, which goes counter to the lawmakers' claim of media consolidation and that there is no record of them proposing to supplant local news with news produced in Washington, D.C. It also said it doesn't plan on cutting jobs and that consumer price increase concerns are invalid since Tegna provides free over-the-air broadcasts. 

"We were... disappointed to see the FCC petitioners enlist the involvement of Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Pallone by misleading them with the same false statements they have been making to the FCC," Standard General said.

NewsGuild-CWA, among the groups opposing the merger, applauded the letter and asked the FCC to nix the deal. “Local news is being murdered by Wall Street firms who are only interested in cutting jobs to finance their debt,” the group said. “The FCC can stop this deal, protect local news and permit our members to serve the public with high quality local news.

“The letter from the Speaker and the Chairman is just one more reason the FCC should closely examine this deal and then block it in its entirety. There are no concessions Standard General can make that would turn this deal into one which serves the public interest. As the union of America’s journalists and media workers, we proclaim that it’s time for private equity to stop slaughtering our country’s free press.”

This article has been updated to include Standard General's response. 

NEW YORK--Apollo Global Management LLC, a private equity firm, is planning on acquiring 14 regional TV stations from Cox Enterprise, according to Reuters.

The deal would the largest for Apollo, which also tried to unsuccessfully acquire stations from Nexstar and Tribune last year.

Apollo is also seeking to acquire local stations from Nexstar worth about $1 billion; stations that Nexstar plan to jettison following Nexstar’s $4.1 billion acquisition of Tribune. Apollo has also agreed to purchase a dozen stations in the rural northwest from Northwest Broadcasting.

Atlanta-based Cox announced last summer that it planned on putting the 14 stations on the block as it tries to diversify its portfolio.

Cox and Apollo are also in discussions for joint venture agreements for Cox’s WSB-TV station in Atlanta.

The agreement could be announced as early as this week. 

MONTEREY, CALIF.—U.S. broadcast station mergers and acquisitions volume reached $104.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2016, and closed the year at $5.83 billion as tracked by SNL Kagan, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Radio deal volume in fiscal year 2016 reached $522.6 million, which is the lowest year on record going back to 1982.

In the fourth quarter of 2016, 92 percent of the U.S. broadcast station deal volume ($96.2 million) came from radio deals. Due to the ongoing FCC quiet period on TV transactions as a result of the ongoing spectrum auction, the TV deal market registered a mere $8.2 million.

October was the busiest month for radio deals in Q4 with 79 percent of the total transactions taking place in that month. Following the optimistic outlook of the NAB Radio Show in Nashville on Sept. 21-23, the month of October brought a surge of transactions registering 11 deals above $1 million. All three top radio deals in Q4 also happened in the month of October.

The top deal of the fourth quarter (and the second-largest deal of the year) came in the wake of the Beasley/Greater Media merger. In August, Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. placed three stations it bought in the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, N.C. market in a trust to comply with FCC regulations. In October, Beasley sold the stations WLNK-FM and WBT-AM/FM, together with WFNZ-FM and an FM translator, to Entercom Communications Corp. for $24.0 million, equating to a 6x cash flow multiple.

In the absence of any other large deals, Beasley became not only the year’s top buyer but also the top seller by deal volume.

The fourth quarter of 2016 also brought the year’s largest single-station deal, which involved the same station as had the year’s top-ranked single-station deal at the time. KFWB in Los Angeles changed hands for the second time this year, delivering a $3.2 million profit to short-time owner Universal Media Access, which in February paid $8.0 million for the station, intending to keep it, but could not refuse Lotus Communications’ $11.2 million offer.

Following the FCC’s AM Revitalization Act, the U.S. deal market experienced a surge of sales of FM translators. In total, 489 FM translators and 447 translator construction permits sold for $31.9 million and $16.7 million, respectively. The total number of 936 translator stations and permits, more than twice as high as in 2015 (458), stands for 65 percent of all radio stations and permits sold in 2016.

In spite of the FCC Incentive Auction quiet period on TV station transactions, Northern Lights Media, Inc., a unit of Gray Television, Inc., announced the acquisition of a trio of TV stations in America’s northernmost market, Fairbanks, Alaska, paying $8.0 million (a 7.0x cash flow multiple) to owner/operator partners Tanana Valley Television Co. and Chena Broadcasting LLC.

In the wake of the $4.6 billion merger of Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Inc. and Media General, Inc., the TV market closes the year with a total of $5.30 billion, 87 percent of which stems from just one deal.