Rupert Murdoch's summer of good fortune

Rupert Murdoch is having a great summer.

Three times this summer, government regulators have had to make major decisions regarding media ownership. Three times, the decision has gone the way that Murdoch and his company, 21st Century Fox, would have wanted.

Murdoch is known to speak regularly with President Donald Trump. And some of the biggest stars of Murdoch's network, Fox News, have arguably been the president's most important supporters over the past year and a half. There's no evidence that either of those things led to the regulators' decisions, or that the decisions coming together this way are anything but a coincidence, but Murdoch's string of good fortune has set some tongues wagging.

"Everything seems to be falling Rupert's way," said BTIG media and technologyPai announced on Monday that he had "serious concerns" about the transaction. Though Pai had previously been accused of loosening station ownership rules to help Sinclair, Pai this week criticized the company for striking deals to sell stations to buyers who have close ties with Sinclair as part of an effort to stay within ownership cap rules.

Sinclair has been viewed as a possible rival to Fox News as the former builds up a huge national footprint and snaps up talent like former Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn and former CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. According to Politico, Sinclair has even approached current and former Fox talent like Jeanine Pirro and Eric Bolling. Last month, BuzzFeed reported Sinclair was preparing to launch a free streaming app called STIRR, a 24/7 TV