WASHINGTON, D.C.—The FCC has issued a Memorandum and Order approving a deal between Gray Television and Marquee Broadcasting that would transfer station licenses to Marquee and transfer an unbuilt construction permit from Marquee to Gray.
The application was unopposed. The FCC ruling will allow Marquee to own two top-four network affiliations in the Cheyenne-Scottsbluff Nielsen Designated Market Area. The Local Television Ownership Rule generally prohibits top-four combinations in a market, including the transfer or assignment of ownership of multiple top-four affiliated program streams serving a single DMA.
The FCC ruled, however, that Marquee should be an exemption because the small market would have made it difficult to provide local news without the exemption.
After Gray and Marquee signed an Asset Purchase Agreement dated January 30, 2024, the station groups filed applications with the FCC for assignment of certain licenses from Gray to Marquee Broadcasting West, Inc. and, in exchange, to assign an unbuilt construction permit from Marquee to Gray
As part of that agreement, Gray sought to acquire the construction permit for KCBU(TV), Price, Utah (KCBU) from Marquee and transfer the licenses of television stations KCWY-DT, Casper, Wyoming (KCWY) in the Casper-Riverton DMA; KGWN-TV, Cheyenne, Wyoming (KGWN) and KSTF(TV), Scottsbluff, Nebraska (KSTF) in the Cheyenne-Scottsbluff DMA; and KNEP(TV), Sidney, Nebraska (KNEP) in the Denver DMA; and the related low-power stations to Marquee.
The applicants assert that the digital noise-limited service contours of KGWN and KSTF in the Cheyenne-Scottsbluff market do not overlap. The agreement would, however, give Marquee ownership of KGWN, which currently has two top-four rated network affiliations on its programming streams in the Cheyenne-Scottsbluff DMA.
The applicants noted that prior to the transfer, Gray provided over-the-air service throughout the Cheyenne-Scottsbluff DMA through KGWN, which primarily serves Cheyenne, Wyoming, and semi-satellite stations KSTF and KNEP, which serve the Scottsbluff, Nebraska, area. These stations provide 17 hours of local news per week, as well as CBS and NBC network programming.
Gray and Marquee argued that Gray could not sustain the current level of local service to Cheyenne-Scottsbluff viewers for the long term, and that Marquee can maintain and improve KGWN’s local service only if the CBS and NBC affiliations remain intact.
They also stressed that the Cheyenne-Scottsbluff DMA only has 61,010 television households spread thinly over 5,665 square miles and ranking 196th of 210 DMAs in the country, making it a geographically large, but sparsely populated, market covering portions of Wyoming and Nebraska.
In approving the deal, the FCC noted that “the Commission’s Local Television Ownership Rule prohibits, among other things, the transfer or assignment of ownership of multiple top-four rated program streams serving a single DMA. Upon request, however, we consider case-by-case showings that application of the Top-Four Prohibition is not in the public interest due to specific circumstances in a local market or with respect to a specific transaction.”
After reviewing the filings, the FCC concluded that “The record demonstrates that permitting Marquee to acquire KGWN with both top-four network affiliations intact makes it more likely that Marquee would preserve the service that Gray currently provides in the Cheyenne-Scottsbluff DMA, which would serve the public interest. KGWN, as the CBS and NBC affiliate in the market, provides the only locally produced television news programming in the market, and in 2023 and early 2024, Gray aired 17 hours of local news each week across the two network streams. The evidence in the record demonstrates that splitting up the top-four network affiliations currently on KGWN would likely lead to a reduction in network programming or local news in the Cheyenne-Scottsbluff DMA, which would not serve the public interest. We conclude that the public interest harms of Marquee’s proposed ownership of KGWN with the two top-four affiliations intact are outweighed by the unrebutted record evidence of the public interest benefits of this transaction.”
The full ruling can be found here.
