FCC set to deliver long-sought victory to Trump-aligned broadcasters

The Federal Communications Commission is changing its rules so that local TV station owners can become much bigger.

The impending vote, which will likely be challenged in court, is a victory long sought by media moguls aligned with President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

The change is a priority for FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who believes it is necessary for broadcasters to be able to better compete with tech giants and other competitors.

Carr announced Wednesday that the FCC would vote next month to repeal its national broadcast ownership rule, which prohibits a single company from reaching more than 39 percent of U.S. television households.

As a result, a broadcast network like NBC has affiliated stations across the United States that are owned by various companies, rather than all being owned by NBC.

The rule is intended to encourage local ownership, but Carr says it is “outdated” because it prevents station owners from “getting the same scale that their competitors are free to enjoy.”

The FCC has waived the so-called ownership “cap” in the past, and now Carr’s office says it wants to implement a “case-by-case” review process that “will allow the FCC to approve deals that promote the public interest while allowing the agency to reject any offering that does not meet that standard.”

Critics say Carr used the “public interest” test as a weapon to favor Trump’s allies and punish his critics.

But the FCC is currently firmly under Republican control; Only one of the three commissioners, Anna Gomez, is a Democrat, so the Aug. 6 vote to eliminate the rule will almost certainly pass.

On Wednesday, Gomez called the impending change “an illegal attempt to hand control of the public airwaves to this administration’s billionaire cronies.”

“A free and diverse media landscape depends on real limits on how much of the public airwaves a company can control, and this FCC is now prepared to allow local broadcasters to sell those airwaves to the highest bidder,” Gomez said.

Carr’s office, of course, presented the situation very differently, saying that “this action will foster a competitive media marketplace, strengthen localism, and encourage investment in trusted news sources.”

Such an approach would facilitate current and future mergers. Nexstar, one of the largest TV station owners in the United States, had to obtain a waiver from the FCC to acquire one of its rivals, Tegna, earlier this year.

The merger was put on hold by a federal judge after a coalition of state attorneys general sued to block it, arguing the combination violated antitrust laws.

On Wednesday, a Nexstar spokesperson hailed Carr’s plan to repeal the rule as “a welcome and long-overdue step toward introducing broadcast regulation into the modern media marketplace.”

Sinclair, another station owner expected to benefit from the change, said: “Given the undeniable change and disruption to the media ecosystem, updating these rules to reflect the current landscape is common sense. »

Conservative lawmakers and advocacy groups have also pushed for years for eliminating the cap, suggesting it would level the playing field.

Carr promoted the position in an op-ed published Wednesday on the right-wing website Breitbart, presenting it as a way to “restore balance to the broadcast airwaves.”

Public interest groups that support the cap — and oppose further consolidation of the local TV industry — said Carr was genuinely trying to help his political allies.

Matt Wood, vice president of policy and general counsel at Free Press, pointed out that Congress set the 39 percent cap in a 2004 law.

“Brendan Carr cannot overturn the limit set by Congress just because he feels like it,” Wood said in a statement foreshadowing future legal action.

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