Local News Departments

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 19:19:01 -0700, "Sid Schweiger" <sid@wrko.com> said:

> The General Tire & Rubber Company's broadcast operation, RKO-General,
> was "invited" to vacate the broadcasting business after the parent
> company was convicted in federal court of bribery.

That's not supported by the record.  WNAC lost its license over "lack
of candor" (because RKO General was denying the accusations before the
FCC at the same time as General Tire was admitting to them in another
proceeding), not a felony conviction.  As I wrote (based on the case
transcript from the Court of Appeals) in the Archives article on
channel 7:

	When the Appeals Court ruling on WNAC-TV's license renewal
	came down on December 4, 1981, things could not have turned
	out worse for RKO. While the FCC process had been going on,
	the Securities and Exchange Commission had been investigating
	RKO for securities fraud. In the settlement of that case,
	General Tire admitted to cooking its books in order to hide
	illegal political contributions and bribes paid to foreign
	officials. Meanwhile, in the FCC proceeding, RKO General had
	been denying the same allegations. In light of RKO's lack of
	candor before the FCC, RKO was ruled unfit to be a broadcast
	licensee, and stripped of all its licenses. The Court of
	Appeals concurred in the FCC's judgment with respect to
	WNAC-TV, and ordered a rehearing for the other stations. (The
	FCC had already rejected an offer by General Tire to spin off
	its broadcasting division to shareholders.)

In the article I detail the history of the case which led to the
FCC hearings in the first place.

> As a necessary cost of doing business overseas, [GTR] routinely made
> payments to governments.  Although perfectly legal overseas, it was
> illegal in the US (even though no such payments were made in the US)
> and they got nabbed for it.

Actually, if my memory of the case is correct, GTR admitted to the
bribery during the SEC hearings which preceded and led to the passage
of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, so what they had done may have
been legal (as far as U.S. law was concerned) at the time.  The FCPA
dates to 1977, and I believe the false statements before the FCC were
made in 1975 or 1976.

-GAWollman