Industry officials expect Chairman Brendan Carr to circulate an NPRM Wednesday evening on relaxing the national broadcast ownership cap, they told us after Breitbart reported on the proposal. Carr has repeatedly said he believes the FCC has the authority to change the cap, and he wants to empower local broadcasters to reduce the power imbalance between station owners and national networks (see Ref:2505160064]). The current rules limit a single company from owning stations that reach more than 39% of U.S. TV households. With Wednesday’s confirmation of incoming FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty, Carr is seen as having the votes to relax the rules. Opponents of broadcast deregulation have said the FCC doesn’t have the authority to alter the ownership limit, and any FCC action to change it is certain to draw a legal challenge.
The FCC Media Bureau issued a public notice late Wednesday seeking comment on eliminating or modifying the national broadcast-ownership cap. The item sought comment about changing the cap, modifying the UHF discount and treating ownership of non-top-four affiliate stations differently under the rules. If the FCC “retains a national audience reach cap, should common ownership of stations that are not affiliated with major national broadcast networks (i.e., ABC, CBS, NBC, or FOX) be excluded from the cap?” the notice asked.
A broadcaster who executed a sham transfer of his radio and TV stations to his 17-year-old niece and falsely certified that he was a U.S. citizen doesn’t have the character to be an FCC licensee, ruled FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin in an order in Monday’s Daily Digest (see 2504090035). Antonio Guel is barred from future broadcast ownership and must pay a penalty of $188,491, and any broadcaster that uses him as a consultant is required to attach a copy of Halprin’s decision against him to all their FCC filings, the order said. The Media Bureau designated Guel and his company Hispanic Christian Community Network’s 2010 sale of stations to Guel’s niece for hearing in 2023.
FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington is right that broadcast ownership restrictions need modernization, but his call for streaming platforms to be subject to MVPD-like regulation (see 2505270054) is economically flawed, International Center for Law & Economics senior scholar Eric Fruits wrote Friday. That would extend an outdated regulatory framework over more technologies, he said. Streaming began and grew because streamers weren't subject to the heavy-handed rules that traditional linear providers were, and expanding legacy rules to streaming platforms could discourage technological experimentation, he said. Instead, the commission should revisit the broadcast industry's national cap and "offer the MVPDs the same light-touch rules that streamers currently enjoy."
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said at a listening session and panel discussion hosted Wednesday by Free Press that she doesn’t expect the agency to “liberally” use a good-cause exception to notice-and-comment rules or delegated authority when it takes action on the “Delete” docket. “I am hopeful that, in fact, a lot of these rules will come up to vote,” she said at the Los Angeles event, which was part of her “First Amendment Tour” (see 2504240064).
Major communications industry trade associations complained about state broadband regulations in a joint filing at the DOJ in response to a request for comments by the department’s new Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force. Like the FCC’s “Delete” proceeding, the initiative is part of the Trump administration’s push to cut regulation.
The FCC should take “a second look” at reclassifying streaming platforms -- sometimes called virtual MVPDs -- as MVPDs and allow broadcasters more flexibility to consolidate, Commissioner Nathan Simington said Tuesday in a Daily Caller column co-authored with Gavin Wax, his chief of staff. “The Communications Act’s definition of a ‘channel’ must be expanded from covering spectrum to encompass digital distribution,” they wrote. “If it walks and talks like a broadcaster, it should be regulated like one.”
A host of conservative groups urged the FCC to repeal national and local radio and TV ownership limits. “Without reform, valued local broadcast radio and television services could disappear entirely,” the groups told Chairman Brendan Carr in a Wednesday letter, which was circulated by NAB Friday. Signatories to the letter included Heritage Action for America, Americans for Tax Reform, the Digital First Project and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The Center for American Rights, which has filed FCC complaints against the programming of NAB members Paramount, Disney and NBCUniversal, also signed. NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt said in a release Friday that the trade group was “grateful for the wide-ranging support to modernize these outdated broadcast ownership rules and echo the call for the FCC to level the playing field.”
HERSHEY, Pennsylvania -- As the FCC eliminates regulations, it will likely employ the good-cause exception to notice-and-comment rulemaking to do so quickly, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Friday.
Charter Communications wants to purchase fellow MVPD Cox Communications for $34.5 billion, the companies said in a joint news release and conference call Friday.