Media Consolidation

"Industry gatekeepers and big-money opposition have done their part to stall Ms. Sohn's confirmation because they know a fully functional FCC would hold them accountable for engaging in discriminatory and anticompetitive practices," former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, now special adviser to advocacy group Common Cause, said yesterday.

Today marks the one year anniversary of Gigi Sohn’s nomination to serve as FCC commissioner. Ms. Sohn was first nominated on October 6, 2021 and has yet to receive a confirmation vote. The delay in her confirmation has kept the vacancy open and the FCC deadlocked in a 2-2 split. A deadlocked FCC is unable to adopt meaningful reforms that address communications needs of our communities.

“It’s hard to see the FCC approving this deal, given the evidence against it and given that key members of Congress have voiced their concern,” Yosef Getachew, Media & Democracy program director at the advocacy group Common Cause, said in an interview. Common Cause has asked the FCC to deny the merger.

“Oregon generally embraces a positive voting environment,” said Kate Titus, executive director of Common Cause Oregon. “All of these little changes around the edges help.” Titus said the state could revisit further expanding its automatic voter registration system to allow registration to occur through other state agencies in the coming years.

Common Cause, news and broadcast unions and UCC Media Justice, Which petitioned the FCC to deny the Standard General-Tegna merger, told the FCC Tuesday (Aug. 2)  just what it thought of the those merging parties' defense of the deal, including that the petitioners had no legal right to challenge it. In their comments, the groups minced no words. "The Applicants and their anonymous funders located in the Cayman and British Virgin Islands have proposed a complex series of transactions designed to weaken local journalism and jack up cable subscriber fees," they said. "Grant of their pending applications will do nothing to create a more accurate, diverse or independent media." 

Today, Common Cause joined The NewsGuild-CWA, National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA, and UCC Media Justice Ministry in filing a Reply, opposing the proposed merger of Apollo Global Management, Standard General L.P., and Tegna Inc. In June, Common Cause filed its original petition to deny the merger.