(a) If the Attorney General concludes that one or more of the newspapers involved would otherwise fail before the procedures under these regulations can be completed, he may grant temporary approval of whatever form of joint or unified action would be lawful under the Act if performed as part of an approved joint newspaper operating arrangement, and that he concludes is: (1) Essential to the survival of the newspaper or newspapers; and (2) most likely capable of being terminated without impairment to the ability of both newspapers to resume independent operation should final approval eventually be denied.

(b) Upon the filing of a request for temporary approval, the applicants shall publish notice of such application on the front pages of their respective newspapers for a period of three consecutive days in the case of daily newspapers or in the next issue in the case of weekly newspapers. The notice shall state:

(1) That a request for temporary approval of a joint operating arrangement or other joint or unified action has been made to the Attorney General; and

(2) That anyone wishing to protest the application for temporary approval may do so by delivering a statement of protest or telephoning his views to an employee of the Department of Justice, whose name, address and telephone number shall be designated by the Department upon receipt of the application for temporary approval, and that such protests must be received by the Department within five days of the first publication of notice in accordance with paragraph (a) of this section.

(c) The notice required by this section shall be in addition to the notice required by § 48.6.

(d) Such temporary approval may be granted without hearing at any time following the expiration of the period provided for protests, but shall create no presumption that final approval will be granted.