Then the charges being made by the congressmen are fraudulent. The FCC is not in a position to deny a sale for any of the reasons they state. Making such a demand of the FCC ignores the constitutional rights of the buyers.
No, what it ignores is that the FCC does not regulate formats or content beyond prohibitions of profanity and obscenity.
Losing the financing of one backer wouldn't affect this sale. There are lots of rich Hispanics in this country who support this idea. In addition, it is the stated and documented policy of the FCC to promote and encourage minority ownership of broadcasting, which this would be.
Without getting into a discussion of the shifting tide of Hispanics towards political movements that reflect religious and family values that are culturally closer to Hispanic tradition, there are Hispanics involved with media but not with social or sociopolitical goals.
Nowhere in that stated and documented FCC policy does it say anything requiring any broadcast experience from the minority owners.
No, that is just common sense. The buyers of the TelevisaUnivision stations seem to be highly lacking in that respect, or the would not be buying a package that includes 9 AM stations, most of which are not very good signals. It's widely known among people who actually know Hispanic use of radio that AM usage by Hispanics is vastly less than the usage by non-Hispanic whites.
The people in the linked article are not protesters. They are employees of the government and the American people.
If you mean the two women who "run" the buyer company, they were employees of the Democratic Party for most of their careers, not of the government. And they were at pretty low levels to be taking out a $90 million dollar loan for mostly AM stations with bad signals.
If you mean the politicians protesting the sale, they are representatives of those who voted for them. They believe that their constituencies support this position.
We all pay their salaries. They are using their position to make demands of a regulatory agency that are unjust. Any rule or decision that might be made against LMN could just as easily be used against Sinclair or Salem or any other broadcaster that represents the opposite point of view.
I don't think this would be the first time that an elected official asked for or voted for something that seemed beyond the definition of their positions or which was outside the scope of the action they requested. There are, of course, many cases where the FCC has been asked to regulate or censure content that is not within the scope of its authority. So this is nothing new. It will not progress.
But, as I said before, I believe that the protesting representatives hope that focusing attention on what they believe to be a negative proposition may cause the buyers to loose their financial support. In that case, they have succeeded.