Clear Channel: SBS abusing Univision merger review
By Bill McConnell -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/29/2002 3:00:00 AM
Clear Channel Communications Inc. attorneys said Spanish Broadcasting System is using "hit-and-run" tactics to unfairly attack their client and disrupt the Federal Communications Commission's review of the Hispanic Broadcasting Corp./Univision Communications Inc. merger.
In a letter to the commission released by the agency late last week, Clear Channel's lawyers complained that SBS is exploiting a bid to block the merger filed by the National Hispanic Policy Institute to air unrelated disputes about the country's largest radio-station group and billboard company. Clear Channel would own a minority interest in Univision if the deal is approved, and it said it is not a material party to the merger.
A recent "slide show" presentation to FCC staff is little more than a "slicked-up" version of SBS' suit against Clear Channel now pending in federal district court in Miami, the attorneys said. In that suit, SBS alleged that Clear Channel wrecked negotiations that could have led to a merger between SBS and HBC.
Clear Channel lawyer Richard Bodorff of Washington, D.C.-based firm Wiley, Rein & Fielding LLP was particularly critical of SBS' initial attempt to keep its presentation to the FCC confidential. SBS later rescinded that request.
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