Editing Local marketing agreement (section)

==History and background==
Due to the FCC's limits on station ownership at the time (which prevented the common ownership of multiple radio stations), local marketing agreements in radio, in which a smaller station would sell its entire airtime to a third-party in time-buy, were widespread between the 1970s and early 1990s.<ref name=concise-encyclopedia/> These alliances gave larger broadcasters a way to expand their reach, and smaller broadcasters a means of obtaining a stable stream of revenue.<ref name=concise-encyclopedia/> In 1992, the FCC began allowing broadcasting companies to own multiple radio stations in a single market. Following these changes, local marketing agreements largely fell out of favor for radio, as it was now possible for broadcasters to simply buy another station outright rather than lease it – consequentially triggering a wave of mass consolidation in the radio industry.<ref name=concise-encyclopedia/> However, broadcasters still used local marketing agreements to help transition acquired stations to their new owners.<ref name=concise-encyclopedia>{{cite book|title=The Concise Encyclopedia of American radio|author=Christopher H. Sterling|publisher=Routledge|location=New York City, New York|edition=Concise|date=2010|isbn=9780415995337}}</ref>

The first local marketing agreement in [[North America]]n television was formed in 1991, when the Sinclair Broadcast Group purchased [[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] affiliate [[WPGH-TV]] in [[Pittsburgh]], Pennsylvania. As Sinclair had already owned [[Independent station (North America)|independent station]] WPTT (now [[MyNetworkTV]] affiliate [[WPNT]]) in that market, which would have violated FCC rules which at the time had prohibited television station duopolies, Sinclair decided to sell the lower-rated WPTT to the station's manager Eddie Edwards, but continued to operate the station through an LMA (Sinclair eventually repurchased the station – then assigned the call letters WCWB – outright in 2000, after the Federal Communications Commission began permitting common ownership of two television stations in the same market, creating a legal duopoly).<ref>{{cite book|title=Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dR4xhtp0l2MC&pg=PA102|author=Eric Klinenberg|publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers]]|date=January 9, 2007|pages=101–105|isbn=9781429923606|author-link = Eric Klinenberg}}</ref>

Sinclair's use of local marketing agreements would lead to legal issues in 1999, when Glencairn, Ltd. (since restructured as [[Cunningham Broadcasting]]) announced that it would acquire Fox affiliate [[KOKH-TV]] in [[Oklahoma City]], [[Oklahoma]] from Sullivan Broadcasting; Glencairn subsequently announced plans to sell five of its 11 existing stations that were operated by Sinclair under LMAs to that company outright. As the family of Sinclair Broadcast Group founder Julian Smith controlled 97% of Glencairn's stock assets (which remains the case under its Cunningham structure) and the company was to be paid with Sinclair stock in turn for the purchases, KOKH and Sinclair-owned [[The WB|WB]] affiliate [[KOCB]] would effectively constitute a [[Duopoly (broadcasting)|duopoly]] in violation of FCC rules. The [[Rainbow/PUSH]] coalition (headed by [[Jesse Jackson]]) filed challenges against the sale with the FCC, citing concerns over a single company holding two broadcast licenses in a single market and argued that Glencairn was masquerading as a separate minority-owned company (Edwards, who served as Glencairn's president, is [[African American]]) when it was really an arm of Sinclair that the company used to gain control of the stations through LMAs.<ref>{{cite news|title=PUSH pushing FCC over Sinclair/Glencairn|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-20938729.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140610193409/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-20938729.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 10, 2014|work=[[Broadcasting & Cable]]|publisher=HighBeam Research|date=July 13, 1998|access-date=December 13, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Glencairn's dicey LMAs|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-54266781.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140610193407/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-54266781.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 10, 2014|work=Broadcasting & Cable|publisher=HighBeam Research|date=March 29, 1999|access-date=February 10, 2015}}</ref> After the FCC updated its media ownership rules to allow a single company to own two television stations in the same market in August 1999, Sinclair restructured the deal to acquire KOKH outright. In 2001, the FCC issued a $40,000 fine against Sinclair for illegally controlling Glencairn.<ref>{{cite news|title=FCC fines Sinclair for Glencairn control|url=http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/news-articles/fcc-fines-sinclair-glencairn-control/90604|work=Broadcasting & Cable|date=December 10, 2001|access-date=February 10, 2015}}</ref>

In 1999, the FCC modified its media ownership rules to count LMAs formed after November 5, 1996 that cover more than 15% of the broadcast day toward the ownership limits for the brokering station's owner.<ref name="fcc-sinclairallbrittonlmas">{{cite web|title=TV Shared Services Agreements: Danger Ahead!|url=http://www.commlawblog.com/tags/local-marketing-agreement/|author=Steve Lovelady|work=CommLawBlog|publisher=Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth PLC|date=November 27, 2011|access-date=March 10, 2014}}</ref> Even still, the related joint sales and shared services agreement structures became increasingly common during the 2000s; these outsourcing agreements proliferated between 2011 and 2013, when station owners such as Sinclair and the [[Nexstar Media Group|Nexstar Broadcasting Group]] began expanding their portfolios by acquiring additional stations in an effort to drive [[Sliding scale fees|scale]] as well as to gain leverage in retransmission consent negotiations with [[cable television|cable]] and [[satellite television]] providers.