David Smith may be a favorite target of left-wing bloggers, but the Sinclair CEO is taking the election of Democrat Barack Obama in stride. In his view, the current Republican-dominated FCC hasn’t done anything to help broadcasters, so why worry about what’s coming with the Democrats in control?
“I’ve been somewhat disappointed with the current administration’s picks at the FCC. I don’t think they’ve really done anything that has benefited the industry – at least that I can remember. I would tell you that from a historical perspective, the greatest things we’ve ever done were all done under Democratic administrations,” Smith said in his Q&A session with Wall Street analysts.
“So, while it’s thought that Republican administrations are deregulatory, I’ve never seen much of that under Republican administrations. I’m hopeful that the Democratic administration will ind of look at our industry and say it’s time to take a large view of what’s going on in the industry and maybe react to some of the competitive pressures that are out there and let us do things that we need to do to remain competitive for the long term,” Smith said. “We’ll have to wait and see,” he added.
