FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez signaled that she's open to relaxing some broadcast-ownership rules, called for a clearly defined public interest standard, and again condemned FCC “censorship and control” efforts in her latest “First Amendment Tour” speech Thursday evening. “While one set of outlets is defunded, stripped of licenses or publicly admonished, others are quietly promoted and cleared of regulatory obstacles,” Gomez told a modest crowd at the University of Mississippi. The Trump administration’s goal “is not to reduce bias or to ensure balance, but to engineer a media environment that echoes the government's worldview.”
The regulatory structure that governs broadcasting “is an anachronism” and wouldn’t exist if it were a new technology introduced today, wrote Eric Fruits, a senior scholar for the International Center for Law & Economics, in a post Thursday for Truth on the Market. An emerging technology today wouldn't be subject to rules like retransmission consent, ownership caps and the public interest standard, he said. “The idea that a panel of three to five presidentially appointed FCC commissioners in Washington can better determine the ‘public interest’ than the public itself -- through its viewing choices in a competitive market -- is a relic of progressive-era central planning,” Fruits said. “In reality, the vague standard invites regulatory capture and rent seeking, where politically connected groups lobby the FCC to define the public interest in ways that benefit them, rather than the public at-large.”
The FCC voted unanimously Tuesday to seek comment on relaxing local broadcast-ownership limits, even as protesters at the crowded meeting called FCC Chairman Brendan Carr “the censorship czar” and he continued to deny that his recent comments about Jimmy Kimmel were a threat.
FCC authority to change the national TV ownership cap remains unclear, and anything the agency does is likely to end up challenged in court, agency Chief of Staff Scott Delacourt said Wednesday at a Media Institute event. He also waved off the idea that the end of Chevron deference significantly changes how the FCC will defend its actions in court. The commissioners will vote on kicking off the 2022 quadrennial review of broadcast-ownership rules at its meeting next week (see 2509090060).
The elimination of the broadcast TV national ownership cap would lead to higher prices for MVPD consumers and lower broadcasting viewership, said DirecTV in an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 17-318. NAB's arguments that eliminating the cap won’t raise retransmission consent fees “is a curious position from an organization whose two biggest members seek to merge with the explicit goal of achieving ‘contractual revenue synergies,’” said DirecTV, referencing Nexstar’s proposed $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr signaled in a podcast interview posted Wednesday that the FCC could act against ABC and parent company Disney if they don't discipline late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over comments related to the political affiliation of the man arrested in the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. First Amendment attorneys told us that policing the speech of late-show monologues is outside FCC authority.
Disney reportedly will pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! from the air indefinitely after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr suggested in a podcast interview that the network should discipline Kimmel for comments about the political affiliation of the suspected killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk (see 2509170064), according to Variety and other news outlets.
Michael Powell is leaving NCTA on a high note, with net neutrality -- an issue he has dealt with and opposed for decades -- seemingly dead. "It was going to be really dispiriting to me if I retired, and we were now in a Title II environment, and I'm super excited that no, I can say that we slayed that dragon," the group's outgoing leader told us.
The FCC released drafts Tuesday providing the details of items slated for votes at the agency’s Sept. 30 open meeting, including a Further NPRM on jamming contraband cellphones smuggled into correctional facilities and kicking off its 2022 quadrennial review of broadcast ownership rules. Two infrastructure items and an order scrubbing wireline regulations as part of the “Delete” proceeding round out the agenda (see 2509080060).
Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said at investor conferences last week that he expects the FCC will act on the national ownership cap by the end of the year and possibly as early as this month. “I think we have a pretty clear line of sight” that the cap will be eliminated, Sook said at a Bank of America event Thursday. Sook said he had “a high degree of confidence in the Trump administration,” as well as FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Gail Slater. Carr has been “very adept and very clever” by using an open national cap proceeding that had lain "dormant through the Biden administration and the [Jessica] Rosenworcel FCC, and reviving that by refreshing the record,” Sook said. Nexstar Chief Technology Officer Lee Ann Gliha said at Citi's Global TMT Conference on Wednesday that “we feel like we’re pushing on an open door, a bit.” Nexstar needs the cap to be eliminated to allow its proposed $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna to proceed (see 2508190042).