FCC chair moves to scrap 39% national TV ownership cap
Brendan Carr said the FCC will vote on replacing the national broadcast ownership limit with merger reviews handled case by case.
By Maya Lindqvist · Senior Technology Correspondent
2 min read
The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to vote on whether to eliminate the national cap that limits how many television households one broadcast station owner may reach, according to Ars Technica. The move matters because the 39% ceiling is a congressionally set limit, setting up a likely legal fight over whether the agency can erase it on its own.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced the plan in an op-ed published by Breitbart. Carr said the agency would replace the National Television Ownership Rule with a system that reviews proposed mergers on a “case-by-case” basis.
The current rule is meant to prevent a single broadcast station owner from reaching more than 39% of TV households in the United States, Ars Technica reported. Removing it would give the FCC more room to decide which broadcast groups can grow beyond that threshold.
Previous waiver signaled the shift
Ars Technica reported that Carr’s FCC had already treated the ownership cap as flexible. In March, the agency granted a waiver that allowed Nexstar Media Group to buy Tegna, a deal that let the combined company reach more than half of U.S. television households.
The FCC argued in that matter that Congress had given the agency power to modify or waive the ownership rule, according to Ars Technica. The planned repeal would go further by removing the numerical cap and substituting discretionary merger review.
That legal theory is likely to face a court challenge because the 39% limit was set by Congress, Ars Technica reported. A repeal vote would test how far the FCC can go in changing or discarding a national ownership rule tied to a statutory limit.
Case-by-case reviews would give FCC more discretion
Carr’s proposal would shift the agency away from a fixed national ceiling. Under the approach he described, the FCC would examine broadcast mergers individually rather than applying the same 39% cap across the board.
Ars Technica reported that the change would make it easier for the commission to choose which station groups may exceed the current ownership limit. The outlet also said that, under Carr, the policy would likely help news companies that provide favorable coverage of President Trump.
The FCC vote has not yet been described in the available reporting with a specific date. If approved, the repeal would mark a major change in how national television station ownership is reviewed by federal regulators.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.