COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES	9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2016
Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]
COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES	COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES: Litigation We are a party to lawsuits and claims from time to time in the ordinary course of business. Actions currently pending are in various stages and no material judgments or decisions have been rendered by hearing boards or courts in connection with such actions. After reviewing developments to date with legal counsel, our management is of the opinion that none of our pending and threatened matters are material. The FCC has undertaken an investigation in response to a complaint it received alleging possible violations of the FCC’s sponsorship identification rules by the Company and certain of its subsidiaries. We cannot predict the outcome of any potential FCC action related to this matter but it is possible that such action could include fines and/or compliance programs. Changes in the Rules of Television Ownership, Joint Sales Agreements, Retransmission Consent Negotiations, and National Ownership Cap In March, 2014, the FCC issued a public notice indicating that it will closely scrutinize any broadcast assignment or transfer application proposing sharing arrangements (such as JSAs, LMAs and other shared services agreements) and contingent interests (such as options). We cannot now predict what actions the FCC may require in connection with the processing of applications for FCC consent to future transactions. In addition, in August, 2016, the FCC completed both its 2010 and 2014 quadrennial reviews of its media ownership rules and issued an order which left most of the existing multiple ownership rules intact, but amended the rules to provide that, for JSAs where two television stations are located in the same market, and a party with an attributable interest in one station sells more than 15% of the ad time per week of the other station, the party selling such ad time shall be treated as if it had an attributable ownership interest in the second station. The order provides that JSAs that existed prior to March 31, 2014, may remain in place until October 1, 2025, at which point they must be terminated, amended or otherwise come into compliance with the rules. In addition, these "grandfathered" JSAs may be transferred or assigned without losing grandfathering status. These new rules could limit our future ability to create duopolies or other two station operations in certain markets. The revenues of these JSA arrangements we earned were $16.0 million and $11.5 million for the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015 and $42.5 million and $34.2 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, respectively. In February 2015, the FCC issued an order implementing certain statutorily required changes to its rules governing the duty to negotiate retransmission consent agreements in good faith. With these changes, a television broadcast station is prohibited from negotiating retransmission consent jointly with another television station in the same market unless the “stations are directly or indirectly under common de jure control permitted under the regulations of the Commission.” During a 2015 retransmission consent negotiation, an MVPD filed a complaint with the FCC accusing us of violating this rule. Although we reached agreement with the MVPD and they withdrew their complaint, the FCC undertook its own internal investigation regarding the allegations made by the MVPD and whether we negotiated in good faith as defined by the rules. In order to resolve the issues raised by the investigation described above and all other pending matters before the FCC's Media Bureau (Bureau), the Company, on July 29, 2016, without any admission of liability, entered into a consent decree with the FCC pursuant to which the Bureau agreed (i) to terminate their investigation regarding the retransmission consent negotiations described above as well as any other investigations pending before the Bureau, (ii) to dismiss with prejudice or deny any outstanding adversarial pleadings against the Company pending before the Bureau, (iii) to cancel outstanding forfeiture orders issued by the Bureau relating to the Company, and (iv) to grant all of the Company’s pending license renewals, subject to a payment by the Company to the United States Treasury in the amount of $9.5 million which was paid in September 2016. In addition, pursuant to the terms of the consent decree, the Company agreed to be subject to ongoing compliance monitoring by the FCC for a period of 36 months. Further, in September 2015, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in response to a Congressional directive in STELAR to examine the “totality of the circumstances test” for good-faith negotiations of retransmission consent. The proposed rulemaking seeks comment on new factors and evidence to consider in its evaluation of claims of bad faith negotiation, including service interruptions prior to a “marquee sports or entertainment event,” restrictions on online access to broadcast programming during negotiation impasses, broadcasters’ ability to offer bundles of broadcast signals with other broadcast stations or cable networks, and broadcasters’ ability to invoke the FCC’s exclusivity rules during service interruptions. On July 14, 2016, the FCC’s Chairman announced that the FCC would not, at this time, proceed to adopt additional rules governing good faith negotiations of retransmission consent. No formal action has yet been taken on this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, and we cannot predict if the full Commission will agree to terminate the Rulemaking without action. On September 6, 2016, the FCC released an order eliminating the UHF discount. The UHF discount allowed television station owners to discount the coverage of UHF stations when calculating compliance with the FCC’s national ownership cap, which prohibits a single entity from owning television stations that reach, in total, more than 39% of all the television households in the nation. All but 28 of the stations we own and operate, or to which we provide programming services are UHF. As a result of the elimination of the UHF discount, counting all our present stations and pending transactions, we reach over 37% of U.S. households. The changes to the national ownership cap could limit our future ability to make television station acquisitions.

COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES:

Litigation

We are a party to lawsuits and claims from time to time in the ordinary course of business. Actions currently pending are in various stages and no material judgments or decisions have been rendered by hearing boards or courts in connection with such actions. After reviewing developments to date with legal counsel, our management is of the opinion that none of our pending and threatened matters are material. The FCC has undertaken an investigation in response to a complaint it received alleging possible violations of the FCC’s sponsorship identification rules by the Company and certain of its subsidiaries. We cannot predict the outcome of any potential FCC action related to this matter but it is possible that such action could include fines and/or compliance programs.

Changes in the Rules of Television Ownership, Joint Sales Agreements, Retransmission Consent Negotiations, and National Ownership Cap

In March, 2014, the FCC issued a public notice indicating that it will closely scrutinize any broadcast assignment or transfer application proposing sharing arrangements (such as JSAs, LMAs and other shared services agreements) and contingent interests (such as options). We cannot now predict what actions the FCC may require in connection with the processing of applications for FCC consent to future transactions. In addition, in August, 2016, the FCC completed both its 2010 and 2014 quadrennial reviews of its media ownership rules and issued an order which left most of the existing multiple ownership rules intact, but amended the rules to provide that, for JSAs where two television stations are located in the same market, and a party with an attributable interest in one station sells more than 15% of the ad time per week of the other station, the party selling such ad time shall be treated as if it had an attributable ownership interest in the second station. The order provides that JSAs that existed prior to March 31, 2014, may remain in place until October 1, 2025, at which point they must be terminated, amended or otherwise come into compliance with the rules. In addition, these "grandfathered" JSAs may be transferred or assigned without losing grandfathering status. These new rules could limit our future ability to create duopolies or other two station operations in certain markets. The revenues of these JSA arrangements we earned were $16.0 million and $11.5 million for the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015 and $42.5 million and $34.2 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

In February 2015, the FCC issued an order implementing certain statutorily required changes to its rules governing the duty to negotiate retransmission consent agreements in good faith. With these changes, a television broadcast station is prohibited from negotiating retransmission consent jointly with another television station in the same market unless the “stations are directly or indirectly under common de jure control permitted under the regulations of the Commission.” During a 2015 retransmission consent negotiation, an MVPD filed a complaint with the FCC accusing us of violating this rule. Although we reached agreement with the MVPD and they withdrew their complaint, the FCC undertook its own internal investigation regarding the allegations made by the MVPD and whether we negotiated in good faith as defined by the rules. In order to resolve the issues raised by the investigation described above and all other pending matters before the FCC's Media Bureau (Bureau), the Company, on July 29, 2016, without any admission of liability, entered into a consent decree with the FCC pursuant to which the Bureau agreed (i) to terminate their investigation regarding the retransmission consent negotiations described above as well as any other investigations pending before the Bureau, (ii) to dismiss with prejudice or deny any outstanding adversarial pleadings against the Company pending before the Bureau, (iii) to cancel outstanding forfeiture orders issued by the Bureau relating to the Company, and (iv) to grant all of the Company’s pending license renewals, subject to a payment by the Company to the United States Treasury in the amount of $9.5 million which was paid in September 2016. In addition, pursuant to the terms of the consent decree, the Company agreed to be subject to ongoing compliance monitoring by the FCC for a period of 36 months.

Further, in September 2015, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in response to a Congressional directive in STELAR to examine the “totality of the circumstances test” for good-faith negotiations of retransmission consent. The proposed rulemaking seeks comment on new factors and evidence to consider in its evaluation of claims of bad faith negotiation, including service interruptions prior to a “marquee sports or entertainment event,” restrictions on online access to broadcast programming during negotiation impasses, broadcasters’ ability to offer bundles of broadcast signals with other broadcast stations or cable networks, and broadcasters’ ability to invoke the FCC’s exclusivity rules during service interruptions. On July 14, 2016, the FCC’s Chairman announced that the FCC would not, at this time, proceed to adopt additional rules governing good faith negotiations of retransmission consent. No formal action has yet been taken on this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, and we cannot predict if the full Commission will agree to terminate the Rulemaking without action.

On September 6, 2016, the FCC released an order eliminating the UHF discount. The UHF discount allowed television station owners to discount the coverage of UHF stations when calculating compliance with the FCC’s national ownership cap, which prohibits a single entity from owning television stations that reach, in total, more than 39% of all the television households in the nation. All but 28 of the stations we own and operate, or to which we provide programming services are UHF. As a result of the elimination of the UHF discount, counting all our present stations and pending transactions, we reach over 37% of U.S. households. The changes to the national ownership cap could limit our future ability to make television station acquisitions.