Programming legally has to be "controlled" by the licensee. The only exception are in house programs like newscasts (or others run by the SSA partner), and such programming cannot exceed 15 percent of the weekly schedule of a station that is being managed while under common ownership of other owned stations in the market. WPMI (and likely others) had to dump newscasts as a result of it, so they canned their 4:30 am show.
These Deerfield arrangements (especially WPMI and WJTC) got in at a time when they were not under scrutiny, and it was under the same divestiture that saw their former sister stations KLRT and KASN absorbed into Nexstar's KARK and KARZ. Subsequent deals would see Sinclair getting creative with their existing spectrum and selling off stations outright to their buddies like Armstrong Williams to comply with the rules.
Now under the JSA/SSA, at one time, Sinclair exercised some influence in negotiations, but subsequently got their hands slapped over it, and was forced to let the licensees do it themselves.
It's a vicious cycle since virtually ALL of these licensees have ties to Sinclair. Mumblow was a lender to Sinclair. Armstrong Williams did political commentary work for Sinclair. And what came about from the failed Sinclair-Tribune merger was that Steven Fader, a major advertiser of Sinclair's would have been handed WGN on a silver platter at a bargain basement price in order to appease the FCC.
Now since the licensees legally can't deal with Sinclair, they are essentially dead in the water unless they actually know how to run a tv station. If they are holding out for money, eventually it's going to catch up with them and they'll be forced somehow to end this charade.