Standard General: Audacy and Skydance Deals Show Disparate Treatment

District Court for the D.C. Circuit Friday. Standard’s filing argued that the court should deny motions to dismiss its lawsuit against the FCC, Allen Media CEO Byron Allen and several unions and public interest groups. Standard has argued those entities conspired to block its purchase of Tegna. The Media Bureau accepted applications from Skydance to buy Paramount Global in eight days, while it took 48 to accept Standard’s initial filings to buy Tegna, the motion said. The Paramount transaction involves private equity, similar to Standard’s deal, and is widely expected to prompt job cuts, the filing said. “The straw objectors from the Standard General-TEGNA proceedings have not objected to the Paramount deal,” the filing said. The FCC didn’t require Audacy to show that its transaction wouldn’t lead to job cuts, while it highlighted possible newsroom cuts in Standard/Tegna, the filing said. “The FCC’s recent approval of the license transfers in the Audacy matter confirms to me that the FCC is applying its rules arbitrarily and unlawfully, leaving me with even less confidence that I will be treated fairly and lawfully when I next appear before the FCC,” said Standard founder Soohyung Kim in a declaration filed with the court. “Seeing the different treatment between that matter and the Standard General-TEGNA transaction review has left me to believe that FCC review turns more on who the owner is than on the nature of the transaction.”