Tribune withdraws plans for $3.9 billion merger with Sinclair

The Tribune Broadcasting tower in LA
(Image credit: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson)

Tribune Media said Thursday that it would scrap its $3.9 billion merger with Sinclair Broadcast Group and sue Sinclair for "breach of contract," Fox Business reports. Tribune says Sinclair promised to make a reasonable attempt to get prompt regulatory approval, but conducted unnecessarily aggressive and slow negotiations with the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission.

The deal began to unravel last month when the FCC raised "serious concerns" about the merger, which would have created a company reaching up to 70 million households. Sinclair had said the merger would be "transformational." Tribune CEO Peter Kern said in a statement that the FCC referred "the issue of Sinclair's conduct" for a special hearing, creating unacceptable "uncertainty and delay," The Washington Post reports.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.