FCC Denies Objection to Hoffman Media Group’s Acquisition of Audacy St. Louis Stations

The FCC grants the license transfer of Audacy’s seven St. Louis market radio stations to Hoffman Media Group completing the $20 million deal. The Commission reviewed the informal objection of Corbett P. Shannon, who contended that “the transaction deserves exhaustive scrutiny, public hearings if appropriate, and a searching examination of its long-term effects on media competition, local journalism, editorial independence, and democratic discourse throughout Eastern Missouri.” Shannon also asserted that news/talk KMOX “occupies a ‘unique position in the public trust, and is one of the most influential broadcast institutions in the Midwest, upon which residents rely during natural emergencies, elections, and ‘moments of profound civic importance’ and that ownership concentration reduces the number of independent editorial voices available to the public, ‘increas[ing] the possibility that important community issues will be filtered through a single corporate perspective.’” The Commission did not agree and called Shannon’s concerns about future programming, management and operational decisions “speculative.” The Commission also said Shannon’s “concerns that the stations’ editorial decisions may not remain independent from the owner’s broader commercial, political, real estate, hospitality and financial interests are conjectural.”