Conservatives such as Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, have suggested eliminating the FCC’s public interest authority (see 2512170070) as a way to keep it from pressuring broadcasters over their content, but public interest attorneys and academics said doing so would also strip the agency of most of its power.
The public narrative around the deal for Warner Bros. Discovery could affect the FCC’s consideration of Nexstar/Tegna, said New Street analyst Blair Levin in an email to subscribers Wednesday. The FCC “will likely make its decision on the broadcast deal after months in which the media is discussing the reasons for, and potential dangers of, media consolidation in the context of the battle over [Warner Bros. Discovery]," Levin wrote. If the White House signals that it would approve of Skydance Paramount or Netflix buying WBD, it would make the administration acting to block the much smaller Nexstar/Tegna deal appear hypocritical, he said. That issue is amplified if the Trump administration favors Paramount because “it is hard to see why you think an owner of [a] broadcast network should be allowed to consolidate assets in the streaming, studio, and cable network markets but broadcasters cannot bulk up within the broadcast market,” Levin wrote. He said that recent comments by Trump against relaxing the national TV ownership cap and slamming Nexstar’s NewsNation programming don’t make it less likely that the FCC will act on the cap “though we acknowledge that the President might cause us to reconsider our views if [Nexstar], for example, runs a news segment he does not like.”
Arguments from civil rights and public interest groups against eliminating local radio ownership caps are “rooted in a pre-digital era,” said JVC Media CEO John Caracciolo in reply comments posted Monday in docket 22-459. “Opponents equate ownership fragmentation with diversity and localism. Experience has shown that under-resourced ownership often results in reduced local content, fewer employees, and diminished community service.”
The initial round of 2022 quadrennial review comments last week included Fox seeking elimination of the dual network rule and MVPDs advocating for the FCC to adopt DOJ’s market definitions for broadcasting, as well as the expected calls from broadcast station owners to eliminate ownership limits. Opponents of deregulation in docket 22-459 included conservative entities Newsmax and CPAC, along with a coalition of public interest groups, independent film trade groups and academics arguing that the FCC must study broadcast markets.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s appearance at a Wednesday Senate Commerce Committee hearing went largely as expected (see 2512160052), with the GOP official sparring with sometimes-hostile panel Democrats on his media regulatory actions since taking over as agency head in January. The FCC also drew controversy Wednesday when it scrubbed a description of the commission as an “independent” U.S. agency from a mission statement on its website during the hearing, where Carr faced pushback for saying the FCC “is not formally an independent agency” (see 2512170067).
Nexstar CEO Perry Sook condemned Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy in an interview with Policyband released Tuesday, calling him a “cafeteria conservative” and saying that arguments that broadcast consolidation limits the voices participating in local news are based on a false choice. “Do you want any local news or no local news? If we maintain the status quo, no changes, I’m telling you that ultimately, your news will come from a server and a chatbot,” Sook said. “There won’t be local newsrooms because no one will be able to afford to stay in that business by being kept regulatorily small.”
Congress intended for the FCC to retain authority to relax the national TV-ownership cap as market conditions change, said Wiley Rein's Thomas Johnson, a former general counsel at the agency, in an ex parte letter posted in docket 17-318 Tuesday. The FCC “should not be duped” by “false-flag arguments” that the best reading of the text of the statute is that the FCC doesn’t have authority over the cap. Congress repeatedly used phrases allowing the FCC to modify its rules “because it was not mandating that these ownership limits be set in stone,” Johnson wrote. “Rather, these were one-time adjustments that Congress intended the FCC would continually revisit over time -- and indeed, that the FCC would modify or repeal these rules over time as the media marketplace became more competitive.” The national cap “places an anticompetitive thumb on the scale in favor of Big Tech. Relaxing or eliminating it would remove this artificial constraint on broadcasters’ ability to compete with today’s dominant media conglomerates.”
The Senate Commerce Committee’s FCC oversight hearing Wednesday remains likely to feature a heavy emphasis on examining commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s media regulatory actions, including his mid-September comments against ABC and parent Disney, which were widely perceived as inciting the network’s since-reversed decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air (see 2509220059). Carr threatened ABC in a podcast interview, saying the network should discipline Kimmel for comments about the reaction to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk (see 2509170064) or face FCC action.
The Center for American Rights kicked off an online campaign Monday supporting the elimination of the broadcast TV ownership cap and targeting the Senate Commerce Committee's FCC oversight hearing Wednesday. In an interview, CAR President Daniel Suhr told us he bases the group’s FCC filings on President Donald Trump’s social media posts and public comments. He added that CAR’s focus on media resonates with conservatives and has raised its profile, increasing donations to the organization.
Laura Loomer, a podcaster widely seen as having the ear of President Donald Trump, endorsed the Nexstar/Tegna deal in a post on X late Tuesday, calling on FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to approve the transaction. Loomer denounced Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, who has been a vocal opponent of the deal (see 2508050051). Ruddy is a “selfish leftist” who “opposes both the Nexstar-Tegna merger and the proposed FCC ownership rule change,” Loomer wrote. His network is widely seen as one of the most conservative TV news channels. Many FCC watchers suspect that Trump’s connection with Ruddy led to the president’s recent post objecting to proposals to do away with the national TV-ownership cap (see 2511240055). Ruddy’s opposition to the deal “only empowers the left and their mainstream media allies, who can still control programming in America through ownership no matter who is in the White House or running the FCC,” Loomer said.