Sinclair station sales risk new scrutiny as part of Tribune deal

Sinclair Broadcast Group’s bid to purchase Tribune Media hinges on spinning off TV stations to comply with US limits on broadcast ownership. Yet its proposals to sell stations from Pennsylvania to California are drawing fresh scrutiny as critics, including business rivals, say some of the transactions are designed to evade the ownership rules. In one case, two Texas stations are to be sold to a partner company that until recently was controlled by the estate of the mother of Sinclair’s controlling shareholders. And the flagship Tribune station in Chicago, WGN-TV, is going to an automobile executive who’s a business partner of Sinclair Chairman David Smith. “They’re not really arm’s-length. They’re not really divestitures,” Chris Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax Media, which offers TV news that competes for viewers with Sinclair, said in an interview. “It’s just really an insult to the public, to the rules, and to fairness.”