The FCC has issued major fines against the licensees of 18 TV stations, including two in Iowa, for allegedly “failing to negotiate for retransmission consent in good faith.”
They include Second Generation of Iowa’s KFXA/28.1 (Cedar Rapids) and Waitt Broadcasting’s KMEG/14.1 (Sioux City). A $512,228 fine was issued for each station.
The FCC found that the licensees, who all had at least one agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group, refused to negotiate with DirecTV and AT&T, unreasonably delayed retransmission consent negotiations, and failed to respond to proposals for the retransmission of the stations.
Most of the specifics of the dispute are redacted from the publicly-released forfeiture order. The complaint was first made in 2019 and the legal process has been playing out since then.
“Retransmission consent” is when a TV station, usually a major network affiliate, opts to negotiate a carriage fee with cable, satellite, or streaming TV services. When a station opts for retransmission consent, the services are prohibited from carrying the stations unless they have an agreement.
KFXA is a former FOX affiliate and KMEG is a former CBS affiliate, but Sinclair moved both affiliations to subchannels of its own stations over the winter.