KHQA, KTVO sale approved by FCC

WASHINGTON —The Federal Communications Commission has approved the transfer of licenses for five TV stations from Sinclair to Rincon Broadcasting, which announced a $29.4 million deal to acquire the stations in March.

In doing so, the FCC also provided a rare exemption from its ownership rules prohibiting station groups from owning more than one top-four station in a market. That decision could be interpreted as another example of the FCC’s willingness to relax TV-station ownership rules. The agency has cleared two other waivers of the rule so far this year.

The five stations are WVTV-TV in Milwaukee, KTVO-TV in Kirksville, Mo., WICD-TV in Champaign, Ill., KHQA-TV in Hannibal, Mo., and WICS-TV in Springfield, Ill.