Broadcasting & Cable, April 22, 2008
By John Eggerton

There seems to be some question as to whether News Corp. would have to either apply for a Federal Communications Commission waiver or divest its New York TV stations if it decides to buy Newsday.

The company already owns two TV stations in the New York market and one local newspaper, the New York Post, as well as national paper The Wall Street Journal. Old FCC rules prevented News Corp. from owning the stations and paper, but it got a financial-distress waiver because of the ill health of the Post. It is allowed to own the Journal because that is considered a national paper rather than a local one.

Even though there are FCC limits on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership, the company could buy Newsday without the FCC having to approve the deal because no TV or radio license is involved. The FCC does review deals involving newspapers buying stations because those licenses change hands. In addition, owning both would become an issue at license-renewal time no matter whether it was a newspaper buying a broadcast outlet or the other way around.

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