While up to three-quarters of the staff at Tribune Media’s local TV outlets are expected to lose their jobs after Sinclair Broadcast Group acquires the stations, top executives will exit their management positions both comfortable and rich.

In a filing last week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, blogger Robert Feder uncovered the golden parachutes awaiting Tribune’s three most senior executives:

• Edward Lazarus, executive vice president and general counsel: $9,681,435
• Chandler Bigelow, executive vice president and chief financial officer: $9,248,157
• Larry Wert, president broadcast media: $7,760,566

The FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai has already signaled its willingness to allow the largest television station owner in the country to grow even larger after relaxing station ownership rules put in place to maintain diversity in the media. Sinclair is among the most closely politically connected media companies in the country, on friendly terms with the Trump Administration. There appears to be little objection among Republican regulators to approve the transaction, accepting Sinclair’s argument that the deal will be good news for shareholders and allow its stations to benefit from “increased operational efficiencies” such as sharing newsrooms, producing “local” news stories at its corporate headquarters in Maryland, and reducing staff.

“For a company as notoriously cheap as Sinclair, ‘increasing its operational efficiencies’ is simply another way of saying mass firings,” wrote Feder. “According to the SEC filing this week, Sinclair expects to realize $266 million of synergies — presumably through layoffs and other cutbacks.”

Employees are nervous.

“Sinclair’s business model is going into a market, buying multiple stations, moving them all to one facility, and firing three-quarters of the staff to get as much work with the fewest employees,” one union official told Media Matters.

“Our employees are very nervous about the situation,” said another. “It is a combination of political influence and that Sinclair is extremely anti-union in dealing with its employees. What is it going to mean?”

Feder says the responsibility for Tribune’s failure to succeed lands squarely in the top suites of the executive offices, ironically the same management team about to be handsomely rewarded for destroying a Chicago media institution:

“Regardless of when it began, there’s no doubt the wreckage culminated with the company’s current board and leadership. With singleminded determination they cashed out everything they could — from the company’s Gothic masterpiece Tribune Tower headquarters, to its forward-looking digital and data business Gracenote, to the very land under its television stations. The biggest shareholders on the board reaped millions in short-term profits while company execs enriched themselves with extravagant payouts.

“All of which led up to the ultimate sell-out to some outfit from Baltimore you never heard of. Keep that in mind when Sinclair starts handing out pink slips to the working men and women who made WGN and Tribune Media the company it was.”

Why share your gigabit broadband service with the rest of your family when each member can have their own, at a price lower than what most U.S. broadband providers charge for much slower service.

HKT, the largest telecom operator in Hong Kong, last week introduced its newest Netvigator product — four 1Gbps (1,000Mbps) connections for $59 a month. An even more aggressive special, available for a limited time only, offers two gigabit speed connections for $21.50 a month. Both offers require a two-year contract.

“This is a ground-breaking achievement,” Alex Arena, HKT Group’s managing director, told the South China Morning Post. “This new multi-use architecture allows segregated use of the circuits, which ensures a high level of service quality with guaranteed speed, as well as enhanced security to protect our customers from the growing threats of malware and viruses.”

Customers receive a new advanced multi-use modem which connects to HKT’s XG-PON optical network. Gigabit ethernet ports on the back offer up to four disparate connections of 1Gbps each, along with slower in home Wi-Fi service.

“The way we use social media and over-the-top streaming video services while working from home, people don’t want entertainment to mess up their home office’s [internet connection],” Arena said. “So I believe there is a huge market for this new service. How quickly this develops is a function of pricing on our part and customers investing in the latest personal computers and cloud computing services at home.”

Hong Kong remains a global leader in delivering superfast, affordable broadband to consumers. Yet many residents still lack access to fiber optic broadband. The Office of Hong Kong’s Communications Authority reports fiber connections have a 39.3% penetration rate. Only about one-third of Hong Kong residents subscribe to fiber service. The primary reason more do not is lack of availability. HKT has two major competitors – Hong Kong Broadband Network and Hutchtel HK. Neither competitor has a fiber network as extensive as HKT.

Montréal-based Cogeco Communications today announced its U.S. Atlantic Broadband subsidiary was growing larger with the acquisition of MetroCast’s cable systems in Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Virginia in a deal worth $1.4 billion.

MetroCast, owned and operated by Harron Communications, LP is one of the few remaining independent, family owned cable firms. The Harron family has been in the cable business for more than 50 years.

Two years ago, MetroCast sold its Connecticut cable systems to Atlantic Broadband. Now, the Harron family seems ready to exit the cable industry altogether with the sale of its remaining cable systems. Today’s acquisition will transfer 120,000 internet, 76,000 video, and 37,000 phone customers to Atlantic Broadband.

Cogeco will also receive $310 million in U.S. federal tax benefits from the transaction.

“The acquisition of the MetroCast cable systems allows Atlantic Broadband to increase its presence in the growing and lucrative U.S. cable market,” said Louis Audet, president and CEO of Cogeco Communications. “With this acquisition, we are increasing our customer base in attractive markets adjacent to the ones we currently serve.”

Spectrum cable subscribers still watching cable television without a set-top box will soon need one, or a functional equivalent, for every television connected in their home or business as Charter Communications continues its effort to encrypt all cable channels.

The campaign has now reached Kentucky, where Spectrum is preparing to encrypt every television channel on the lineup and is sending notices to its residential and commercial customers.

The University of Kentucky is working to get the word out to facilities operated by UK they may lose all television service as early as July 11 if they don’t take action.

Encryption forces customers to use set-top boxes or other equipment, often at an additional expense, to continue watching cable television service. Cable companies use encryption to reduce signal theft and eliminate the need to send trucks to disconnect customers at the pole. Instead, Charter will simply deauthorize a customer’s set-top box or other equipment so they can no longer watch when the customer cancels or does not pay their bill.

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday quietly approved the transfer of seven high-power television station licenses owned by Bluestone Television/Bonten Media to Sinclair Broadcast Group without informing the sole Democratic commissioner Mignon Clyburn of the agency’s action.

An FCC letter informing Sinclair it approved of the transfer of licenses also included an authorization allowing KCFW (NBC) Kalispell, Mont., to continue operating as a satellite station of KECI (NBC) Missoula.

“Given that KCFW is the only full-power television station in its community of license, is located in a community of license with limited economic viability, and is costly to operate as a stand-alone station, it is unlikely that an alternative operator would be willing and able to purchase or operate the station as a stand-alone facility,” the FCC wrote. “Moreover, KCFW has operated as a satellite of KECI under Commission authority for almost 50 years, most recently reauthorized in 2007 in the Missoula DMA, and we see no evidence in the record that continuing the satellite exemption will harm competition in that market,” the FCC added.

The transfer may put Sinclair over the FCC’s station ownership cap, unless the agency changes its rules to favor Sinclair’s ongoing expansion. Sinclair is already the nation’s biggest owner of local television stations.

Commissioner Clyburn was reportedly not happy to learn about the FCC’s decision only through media reports and tweeted her displeasure this morning, calling the announcement part of a “Friday night news dump.”

#FridayNewsDump continues. Unclear from @FCC’s approval letter (https://t.co/aM0oJRtcsb), does this put Sinclair over the 39% ownership cap?

— Mignon Clyburn (@MClyburnFCC) July 3, 2017

The stations involved:

• WCYB (NBC) Tri-Cities, Tenn./Vir.
• KRCR (ABC) Chico-Redding, Calif.
• KECI (NBC) Missoula, Mont.
• KCFW (NBC) Kalispell, Mont. (satellite station simulcasts KECI)
• KTXS (ABC) Abilene-Sweetwater, Tex.
• KTVM (NBC) Butte-Bozeman, Mont.
• KAEF (ABC) Eureka, Calif.

Most of the television stations are in smaller television markets but will still profit Sinclair because most operate profitable local news operations.

Sinclair’s growing domination of local television station ownership concerned HBO’s John Oliver enough that he spent almost 20 minutes of his Last Week Tonight with John Oliver show discussing how Sinclair’s owners have a history of skewing local newscasts to cater to its own political agenda. (Strong Language) (19 minutes)