Sinclair-owned ABC stations will bring 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' back to air Friday

[Wiz Imp]

20. They created something called the UHF Discount

There is a rule that no single company can own stations reaching more than 39% of TV households in the US. But for UHF stations they only count half of the total households.

Sinclair owns many stations in very small markets, so while they own a ton of stations, their total coverage is only around 39%. They only own a station in only 1 of the 10 largest media markets and only 6 of the top 25.

On the other hand, Nexstar also owns a bunch of stations, but they are in much bigger markets in general. Nexstar has stations in 8 of the top 10 markets in the US. Nexstar stations cover about 80% of all households, but because of the discount, they are only "charged" with half of that coverage allowing them to stay around the 39% limit. However, they want to buy Tegna who owns another 60 some stations. If that were to go through, the Nexstar would be over the 39% limit even with the discounts.

I don't know how the FCC ever came up with a 39% limit, it seems completely arbitrary. But what is clear is there should be no discounts for UHF stations anymore. When the discount was implemented, UHF stations generally had weaker signals, but that changed when TV transitioned from analog to digital. Now almost all stations broadcast over UHF.

The limit on ownership should probably be about 25% of households, but if they ever change it, you can bet it will stay higher than that.