WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau has sent a letter to Sinclair reporting that the regulator has granted the assignment of the license of television station WSWB (TV), in Scranton, Pa. from MPS Media of Scranton License, to WQMY Licensee,, a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of Sinclair, Inc.
In 2013, Sinclair agreed to purchase nine TV stations from New Age Media, including WSWB. To comply with ownership rules it sold some of the stations but continued to manage them. Then in February of 2026, as the FCC became more open to giving ownership waivers, Sinclair decided to purchase the station and seek an ownership waiver with the FCC.
In granting the transfer, the FCC agreed to waive ownership rules to allow Sinclair to own three television stations in the Wilkes Barre-Scranton-Hazleton, Pa. Designated Market Area (DMA).
In asking for the waiver, Sinclair contended that common ownership will preserve the “Stations’ ability to compete and provide high-quality local news” by enabling them to “leverage operational efficiencies,” which will, in turn, advance the public interest.
Sinclair also argued that given the other “higher performing stations in the market” and the fact that “at least four independent local broadcast news operations would remain” following the transaction, the proposed combination would not give Sinclair an “outsized competitive advantage (in viewership or revenues), and instead is critical to improving the Stations’ ability to compete more effectively.”
Sinclair also noted that it would be “highly unlikely to find an out-of-market buyer willing to buy WSWB and operate it as a standalone station, as the station would require significant investment that a new owner would be unlikely to reclaim.”
In its ruling, the FCC noted that the station had “diminished prospects of revenue” that “are compounded by the fact that WSWB is a CW affiliated station, ranked next to last in the Wilkes Barre-Scranton-Hazleton, PA DMA. Moreover, we cannot assume that any such buyer would be in a position to produce new local news on WSWB or otherwise expand programming options across the Stations, which Sinclair maintains it can do solely by virtue of its proposed common ownership. The public interest would not be served by further diminishing WSWB as an independently-operated station or, in the event a buyer could not be found, letting it go dark.”
The FCC also found that “common ownership of the Stations would not harm competition in the Wilkes Barre-Scranton-Hazleton, Pa. DMA, but bolster it, by strengthening WSWB’s operations and expanding its `news, sports, and other local program offerings.’ In addition, Sinclair plans to invest the combined Stations’ revenues toward `possibly acquiring more desirable syndicated programming which will lead to more viewership and higher advertising revenues.’”
“Thus, we find that strict compliance with the Local Television Ownership Rule would be inconsistent with the purpose of that rule—promoting competition among broadcast television stations—and, therefore, inconsistent with the public interest,” the FCC concluded.
The full ruling is available here.
