The Federal Communications Commission moved Thursday to end the media consolidation FCC TV cap, voting 2-1 to eliminate the 39% national ownership limit on U.S. television households. The change scraps a 22-year-old rule and replaces it with case-by-case review for future ownership moves.
Brendan Carr and Olivia Trusty
Brendan Carr led the repeal after calling the limit an outdated
policy, and he argued that it no longer constrains national programmers. He said, The cap no longer constrains the power of national programmers. Instead, it prevents local broadcasters from competing on a level playing field
.
The old cap had been in place since 2004, when the 39% limit took effect after Congress had boosted a previous 35% ceiling in the 1990s. The rule stayed frozen for more than two decades, in part because it was codified in federal law. Under the new setup, the FCC will not use a hard national ceiling; it will evaluate ownership changes one by one.
Anna M. Gomez
Anna M. Gomez, the lone Democratic commissioner, voted against the repeal and called Thursday’s action unlawful on its face
. She added that eliminating the cap does not free local broadcasters from economic pressure and said the companies positioned to expand are national station groups that own local outlets and increasingly dictate what airs on them.
That split leaves the FCC on one side and Gomez on the other, with Brendan Carr and Olivia Trusty backing a rule change that large station owners have pushed for repeatedly. Nexstar Media Group, the nation’s largest owner of local television stations, has argued that the rules were last updated before Netflix streamed a single movie, before the first iPhone, and before Instagram existed. A Nexstar spokesperson also said no one would suggest limiting the reach of YouTube, Amazon, or, while local broadcasters are still bound by rules written for a different century.
Nexstar Media Group and Tegna
The repeal arrives with direct stakes for Nexstar Media Group and Tegna. Nexstar is seeking to acquire Tegna in a $6.2 billion deal, and the combined company would reach at least 60% of U.S. households. Brendan Carr had already announced in March that Nexstar Media Group’s purchase of Tegna had been exempted from the 39% rule on a standalone basis, but a federal judge put the transaction on hold after eight state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit.
For station owners, the practical change is simple: the old national ceiling is gone, but any larger deal still has to clear the FCC’s case-by-case review and survive legal challenge. For Nexstar, that means the ownership door has opened wider even as the Tegna deal remains tied up elsewhere.
