Trump Blasts Proposals to Eliminate National TV Ownership Cap
A social media post by President Donald Trump on Sunday condemning proposals to do away with the national cap on TV station ownership drew a flurry of responses Monday from NAB, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook and Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, who wants the cap to remain in place. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has been widely seen as likely to do away with the cap, but he has also been clear about his deference to Trump. “If this would also allow the Radical Left Networks to ‘enlarge,’ I would not be happy,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “ABC & NBC, in particular, are a disaster - A VIRTUAL ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY. They should be viewed as an illegal campaign to the Radical Left. NO EXPANSION OF THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS. If anything, make them SMALLER! President DJT.”
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“Ownership modernization is not about making national networks larger, it is about empowering local broadcasters that serve their communities with trusted news, emergency information and local journalism,” said a statement Monday morning from NAB, which represents broadcast groups and networks. “These outdated rules do not restrict networks, they restrict local stations that are trying to survive.”
NAB Chief Legal Officer Rick Kaplan also published a blog post Monday blasting those who oppose eliminating the cap, and Sook issued a statement. NBC and ABC didn’t comment.
“We agree with President Trump that the status quo is no longer acceptable, nor should the government do anything to strengthen the stranglehold of legacy media and Big Tech on the marketplace of ideas,” Sook said. “Those platforms already reach into every pocket, purse, and backpack in America, and the best way to disrupt their monopolistic power is to allow local broadcasters an opportunity to compete on a level playing field.”
Sook has been pushing for the national cap to be eliminated for years, and Nexstar needs that or a waiver to win approval for its proposed $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna. In his announcement last week of Nexstar’s filing of FCC applications to buy Tegna, he repeatedly referenced Trump. “Like the Trump administration, we are focused on achieving deregulation, and we continue to advocate for the elimination of the antiquated constraints on local television ownership as the best solution to level the competitive playing field for all media.”
The national ownership cap doesn’t directly affect the ability of networks like ABC and NBC to grow because they don’t own enough stations to trigger it. Under the FCC’s ongoing 2022 quadrennial review, the agency sought comment on the dual-network rule, which limits the top-four networks from merging. That's a separate proceeding from the agency’s consideration of the national cap. Last week, Carr said eliminating the cap could “help balance some of the power between local TV stations” and national programmers.
Kaplan’s blog post Monday pushed back on arguments that the FCC lacks authority to eliminate the cap. “The fantasy that Congress somehow revoked this well-understood authority in 2004 is just that -- a fantasy,” he wrote. “The statute doesn’t say that. It doesn’t hint at that. You have to invent that reading out of thin air.”
Trump’s post linked to a Newsmax article in which Ruddy -- a personal friend of the president -- decried the plan to eliminate the cap. NAB blasted Newsmax in its statement and in Kaplan’s blog. The company is “trying to protect their turf by kneecapping the one platform capable of challenging them at scale,” Kaplan wrote. Newsmax's arguments that eliminating the cap would hurt local journalism are “like a pyromaniac lecturing on fire safety,” he said.
An NAB spokesperson said Ruddy's “misleading campaign is about preventing those local broadcasters from competing on the same playing field as a station like his that already reaches 100 percent of the country.”
“If the NAB feels so strongly about the cap being lifted, they should lobby Congress, which set the limit, to do so,” Ruddy said in an email. “They won’t because there’s no support for it.” Trump’s statement makes it clear that “the country doesn’t want massive TV consolidation through ownership cap changes or allowing multiple local station ownership.” Ruddy also took aim at broadcaster arguments that doing away with the cap is necessary for competition with tech companies. “We can’t fix big Tech consolidation by creating massive TV ownership, which, by the way is almost entirely liberal and opposes Republicans.”