CEO Craig Dubow personally lobbied top U.S. regulators this month just before winning exceptions to rules limiting newspaper and broadcast ownership in the same markets. Bloomberg News says Dubow's appeal to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin on Dec. 7 resulted in Gannett being allowed to continue owning both the Arizona Phoenix (left) and NBC TV affiliate KPNX.Dubow was one of two media CEOs to make such personal appeals, Bloomberg says; the other was Media General's Marshall Morton. Without the waivers both companies got, "they might have been forced to sell properties because their TV-newspaper combinations weren't permitted, even after the FCC relaxed rules this past week for some top markets."
Bloomberg doesn't give the KPNX waiver's length. "Ending the ban is important to us to be able to compete in this new media world," Gannett spokeswoman Tara Connell told Bloomberg. "Any communication with anyone at the FCC would be restating that idea.''
GCI bought the Republic in 2000, adding to its presence in Phoenix, where it already owned KPNX, one of the company's 23 U.S. TV stations. The newspaper-TV combo is supposed to create efficiencies and synergies (yuck! that word!). But an incident last month involving retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's husband suggests all isn't well in Phoenix between the two companies.
[This item thanks to a reader tip! Image: today's Republic, Newseum]
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