The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) wants the FCC, Congress, the White House and DOJ to reject the Nexstar/Tegna deal, the group said Tuesday in a news release, which was highlighted in a separate release from fellow deal opponent Newsmax. “At a time when media bias is already undermining public trust, the last thing our nation needs is even greater consolidation of the television broadcast industry,” said ZOA National President Morton Klein.
Approving mergers between the largest broadcasters and rolling back broadcast-ownership rules will increase retransmission consent fees and “further increase concentration and the prospect of anticompetitive conduct at local and national levels,” said antitrust law firm Kressin Powers in a white paper released Thursday. “Today, the formerly 'local' TV industry is dominated by publicly traded, multibillion-dollar conglomerates owning and controlling hundreds of local-in-name-only affiliate stations,” said the paper, titled "From Local Stations to Nationwide Conglomerates: The High Cost of TV Mega-Mergers."
The FCC Media Bureau has kicked off the pleading cycle for Nexstar’s proposed $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna, said a public notice Monday. Petitions to deny the transaction are due Dec. 31, opposition filings Jan. 15, and replies Jan. 26. Under FCC rules, the combined company would reach 54.5% of U.S. households, so Nexstar has asked the agency to waive the 39% national ownership cap (see 2511190056).
NAB Chief Legal Officer Rick Kaplan said on an NAB podcast released Monday that he expects a relaxation of FCC broadcast-ownership rules “sometime in the next year or so” and that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and his staff “understand” the problems that broadcasters face. Kaplan predicted that the FCC will relax local radio and TV ownership limits, as well as the national TV ownership cap. “It's the only thing that makes sense. It's in line with what the chairman has talked about repeatedly, both when he was a commissioner and now as chair."
The MVPD industry objections to loosening broadcast ownership rules are “self-serving,” said NAB in a letter posted in docket 12-318 Tuesday. Filings from DirecTV and other MVPDs “are part of the pay TV industry’s history of opposing any repeal or loosening of the broadcast ownership rules because pay TV providers prefer to compete against and negotiate retransmission consent agreements with competitively weaker broadcasters,” said NAB. The FCC should reject data submitted by DirecTV to support arguments that broadcast consolidation will lead to higher retransmission consent rates, NAB added.
Congress hasn’t given the FCC any authority over the national TV ownership cap, said the American Television Alliance in a letter filed in docket 17-318 Monday. Congress set the cap at 39% and explicitly removed the new cap from the Commission’s quadrennial review process, ATVA said. “When Congress directs agency action -- whether through codification in a statute or through a direction to change a rule --the agency cannot undo that action unless Congress has authorized it to do so.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down Chevron deference made it clear that “congressional silence is no longer an invitation for regulatory discretion,” the filing said. ATVA said broadcaster arguments that the FCC has authority over the cap are undercut by its filings from 2013, when the FCC was examining doing away with the UHF discount. “Broadcasters say it is obvious that the FCC has broad authority to raise the national cap because Congress failed to ‘enshrine’ it in the statute” but also said it was “obvious that the Commission did not have any authority to change the cap when broadcasters thought the FCC might lower it,” ATVA said.
A recent social media post from President Donald Trump condemning proposals to lift the national TV ownership cap doesn’t definitively spell disaster for broadcasters, said New Street analyst Blair Levin in a note to subscribers Tuesday. Trump’s post was focused on preventing ABC and NBC from growing (see 2511240055), but that isn’t a likely consequence of lifting the cap, Levin wrote. “One should not assume that the President understands what he is talking about when it comes to this post, or that it is a deeply held point of view, as it relates to law and process.”
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.”
Nexstar and Tegna want the FCC to waive the nationwide TV station ownership cap, along with local ownership limits in 23 markets, if those rules remain in effect when the agency decides on the companies' $6.2 billion merger, said transfer of control applications submitted Tuesday.
The FCC doesn’t have the authority to do away with the national broadcast-ownership cap or waive it on a case-by-case basis, said Vanderbilt Law School professor Brian Fitzpatrick in a Nov. 3 letter posted Tuesday in docket 17-318. Fitzpatrick’s filing was amplified in a news release from Newsmax, which has opposed eliminating the cap. "Congress forced the Commission to adopt the 39% ownership cap in the 2004 amendments to the Telecommunications Act and further commanded that any entity that grew beyond that number must divest in a timely manner,” wrote Fitzpatrick. “The Commission cannot ‘waive’ these statutory commands. Nor can it circumvent them by manipulating the UHF discount or permitting sidecar deals.”