The new-look Tribune Company has gotten its paperwork in to the FCC. It is asking to keep certain properties together that required FCC waivers, and has applied to keep them together under its new proposed ownership structure.
In three cases, Tribune is seeking to protect cross-owned pairs involving one television station and one newspaper. Another involves the same type of combination with the addition of an AM station. Another seeks to preserve an existing flagship/satellite relationship between two full-power television stations. And there are two requests involving a sixth market.
The three simple cross-ownership situations include the pairings of WPIX-TV and Newsday in the New York City DMA, KTLA-TV and the Los Angeles Times in the Los Angeles DMA and WSFL-TV and the Sun Sentinel in the Miami DMA.
Chicago is the three-entity market, and the iconic grouping of WGN-AM, WGN-TV and the Chicago Tribune has already been granted a permanent waiver by the FCC.
The flagship/satellite relationship involves WTTV-TV Bloomington IN and its satellite, WTTK-TV Kokomo IN.
Two waivers are required in Hartford CT. For starters, there are two television stations, WTIC-TV and WTXX-TV, combined with The Hartford Courant, requiring a cross-ownership waiver on steroids. And the only reason Tribune was able to have WTXX in the mix in the first place is that it was acquired under a failed station waiver, which it needs to have renewed.
