Any transactions involving an FCC-licensed property must include a properly filled-out application, certain documentation, including evidence that the transaction complies with local ownership caps, and a wide variety of other particulars. And while it does necessarily need to be accompanied by a contract, it does have to provide the price of the transaction, one way or another.
The FCC grants wide latitude on withholding proprietary information, but this does not extend to withholding the value of the transaction.
Generally, the price and the terms of payment is a matter of contract, but it is not unusual for the price of a transaction to be divulged right on the application. This is always the case for certain simple transactions for which a formal contract is not even used.
Failure to include this information will hold up approval for the transaction.
RBR/TVBR observation: We saw a report in another publication which suggested that dealmakers were going to start sending in contracts with value information redacted or otherwise obscured or omitted. Bad idea — and we confess: On those rare occasions where such a deal shows up on the FCC database, we are not above tattling, since we like to publish that information.
