Mark Denbo
Mark B. Denbo has worked in private practice as a communications attorney for over 20 years, including with a mid-sized law firm with 30-40 attorneys and a multi-national firm with over 500 attorneys, before creating a new practice with Smithwick and Belendiuk. Mark focuses his practice on an extensive range of issues affecting owners of radio and television stations, including regulatory matters before the FCC, station transactions, and other business matters, such as real estate and employment contracts. Mark has significant experience in assisting existing commercial and non-commercial television and radio stations, applicants for new stations, financial institutions and programmers in all aspects of station acquisitions and sales, including conducting due diligence reviews, negotiating transaction terms, obtaining financing arrangements and ensuring compliance with the FCC’s ownership rules. Mark also represents television and radio clients with respect to negotiating and drafting local marketing, joint sales and shared services agreements, tower leases, network affiliation agreements and talent contracts. Mark routinely advises clients on existing and proposed FCC regulations, including rules governing EEO, children’s television, political broadcasting and obscenity/indecency, and also prepares and prosecutes applications filed at the FCC, including assignments and transfers, license renewals and facilities modifications. Mark also works on certain matters affecting cable television operators, including various compliance matters before the FCC Media and Enforcement Bureaus, and handled the FCC work associated with a national paging company, including the acquisition and sale of its FCC licenses.
Mark earned a J.D. from American University’s Washington College of Law and earned a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. Mark resides in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with his wife and two children.