Roadblock occurs in the impending merger of Tribune Media with ROH-owned Sinclair Broadcasting

ROH

A major roadblock occurred on Monday in the long-talked about merger of Tribune Media by Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns Ring of Honor, as FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said that the FCC would not approve the merger per multiple reports.

Pai said that the FCC has serious concerns with the fact that if the merger went down, Sinclair would own 59 percent of all local stations in the United States and they ruled that one company can only have stations that cover 39 percent of the US. The other concern was that Sinclair was selling stations to meet that number by the FCC, but with all deals being that they would still retain control of that stations upon the sale going through.

If the merger went down, Sinclair would own 215 stations in 102 local markets, adding on major US cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, would which see ROH TV make it into those cities for the first time.

The other major thing that would go down upon the merger is that Sinclair would obtain the Tennis Channel, which has long been talked about as somewhere ROH TV could go to, with the idea being that the program could potentially expand from a one-hour weekly show to a two-hour show.

Until things are amended between Sinclair and the FCC, it appears that this merger has been blocked from taking place for the time being.

Sources: F4WOnline, PWInsider

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