While the Tegna sale to Standard General continues to go through the approval process, there is one media company that doesn’t like the deal.

Graham Media has filed a petition against Tegna deal with the FCC.

Graham owns WJXT in Jacksonville. Tegna owns both the NBC WTLV and the ABC WJXX stations in Jacksonville. Apollo/Cox owned the CBS (WJAX) and the Fox (WFOX) in Jacksonville.

Standard General is buying the Tegna stations, but they will be spinning off some of those stations to their buying partner Apollo.

Graham seems to imply that Standard General and Apollo could be incahoots when it comes to Jacksonville.

“The proposed transaction would dramatically alter the Jacksonville, Florida, television broadcast market, reducing competition and threatening the Jacksonville community’s access to critical local news and other programming,” said Graham Media in their petition.

Standard General claims that Apollo will have no say, but the SG deal is being partially financed by Apollo and they are partners in the deal.

Graham makes a good point, but we’ll have to see what the FCC thinks about it.

My prediction is the FCC won’t do much, but it is possible that they could force Standard General to spin off the Jacksonville Tegna stations to a new owner.

Stay tuned…