WQEX, McCain link revisited

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | February 22, 2008 | Sally Kalson

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Allegations about Sen. John McCain's relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman have resurrected questions over his role in WQED Pittsburgh's controversial, but ultimately unsuccessful, efforts to sell its sister television station WQEX-16 in the 1990s.

The proposed three-way deal involved a license swap between Ms. Iseman's client, Paxson Communications Corp., and Christian broadcaster Cornerstone TeleVision of Wall, which operated WPCB Channel 40.

The transaction called for Channel 40 to assume the noncommercial license of Channel 16 and sell its own commercial license to Paxson for $35 million, split between Cornerstone and cash-strapped WQED. Paxson would gain entry into the Pittsburgh market and Cornerstone would move to Channel 16.

In late 1999, Mr. McCain, R-Ariz., then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and a presidential candidate, wrote two letters to the Federal Communications Commission urging a vote on the sale to Paxson.

As he said at the time, Mr. McCain said again yesterday that he wrote the letters because the commission was taking twice the usual time to review ownership. He said he wrote, not to influence the commissioners' decision, but to tell them to "go forward."

At the time of the Pittsburgh negotiations, Paxson Chairman Lowell Paxson and his associates had contributed almost $16,000 to Mr. McCain's campaign, and the senator had the use of the Paxson corporate jet.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

It’s a ‘Burgh thing—who knew?

[UCFRoadWarrior]

Sounds like the NYT story may have legs still.....maybe not Vicki Iseman’s legs....but a questionable TV sale

Scarier is that some Repubicans are using this as justification to now support McCain.....not figuring out that the liberal NYT spiked the story originally to help the liberal McCain.

[CharlesWayneCT]

This was not really “questionable”. As McCain noted, at the time it was acceptable to fly on corporate jets. His intervention did NOT request a particular resolution — just that the FCC stop dawdling and do their job.

This is exactly what GOOD constituent service means. The government has it’s hand in way too much, but given that they do, it’s imperative that the government ACT when there is action required. The FCC waited so long that this deal was ready to fall through. People deserved an answer, and McCain told them to give an answer.

As it turned out, the answer they gave, while nominally a “yes”, had so many restrictions that the deal fell through.

So the “argument” is essentially that John McCain “intervened” on behalf of a client in such a way that the client did NOT get what they wanted, and killed the deal. I would guess if you asked Paxton about this, they would suggest that they would have liked a different outcome.

Further, to the degree this DID show McCain as working on behalf of a christian broadcasting station against the evil FCC, it’s GOOD for him.

[NonValueAdded]

NYT reaps their harvest.

[Pietro]

If I remember this whole stupid mess correctly, the liberal artsy-fartsy crowd associated w/ WQED were appalled that a 'Christian" station was going to get their old license (which they couldn't use anyway) and so tried to nix the deal.

They did stop the sale and now channel 16 (the old WQEX) is a shopping channel.

My antennas went up yesterday when I say Eddie Edwards name come up. He was in the middle of that whole deal as part of the Paxton team. I forget how it all worked out except the part that screwed Cornerstone out of the license.

[Erasmus]

Cornerstone is presumably still operating on channel 40, so it doesn't look like they got "screwed out of a license;" they merely were relieved of the necessity to move channels. Paxson is the one who got screwed.

(Maybe you intended to write "Paxson" there.)

If the story is correct about channel 16 being "noncommercial," I can see how Cornerstone could use it, but how does a shopping channel have permission do so?

If this license somehow magically got converted to "commercial," then Paxson either was asleep at the switch, or got screwed a second time.

[martin_fierro]

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[Cringing Negativism Network]

Scarier is that some McCain-haters will actually ally themselves with the socialist media left.

McCain Derangement Syndrome...