KFSM TV owners seek FCC waiver to buy KPBI

KFSM TV has asked the Federal Communications Commission for a waiver so it may acquire KPBI from Riverside Media for $784,000, according to this report from TV News Check.

KFSM, a content partner with The City Wire, is owned by Local TV, a company established by a Fort Worth, Texas-based private equity firm in 2008. The 2008 deal saw KFSM purchased in a $575 million deal in which The New York Times Co. sold all its broadcast television properties.

Local TV owns 19 stations in 18 markets.

The TV News Check story includes the following details.
• FCC rules prohibit common ownership of two stations in a market as small as Fort Smith, but Local TV says the deal meets the FCC criteria for a "failing station" waiver.

• Riverside acquired the station in November 2009, but has not had much luck with it, the filing said. The station suffered net losses of more than $100,000 in the final four and a half months of 2010, and more than $150,000 in the first seven months of 2011.

• "[I]t would "result in important technical and service enhancements to KPBI’s service to Eureka Springs  [its community of license] and to the Fort Smith market that more than outweigh any theoretical harm to competition and diversity," the company said in its FCC request.

• "Most importantly, Local TV would spend significant sums to upgrade KPBI(TV) to broadcast a reliable, full-power, and high-definition digital signal."