News Nation and CW parent Nexstar itself hasn’t drawn the ire of the incoming president, but its CEO Perry Sook says Donald Trump’s threats against big broadcasters, that the FCC could pull their licenses, is not really in the cards.
“I think there is some animus or frustration with some of the networks for some of their content decisions, and things that have happened. I’d say that’s primarily with the big three,” he said during a Q&A at a UBS Media Conference in NYC. “But I’m old enough to remember when President Nixon threatened to do the same thing and did not have success there — found out that the FCC chairman can’t really, unilaterally … revoke licenses.”
“Now, you can use your pulpit to commence hearings and to designate hearings and things like that, make people’s life more expensive and more difficult. But to unilaterally revoke licenses is not really within cards.”
President Trump has in recent months taken issue with, sued and threatened major networks. Two key flashpoints have been a Trump interview on ABC, and a Kamala Harris interview on CBS‘ 60 Minutes.
Separately, Sook sees bright days ahead for Nexstar as the nation’s biggest owner to television stations in an administration that’s declared itself open to deregulation. That includes possibly eliminating the national cap on broadcast TV ownership (now at 39%) and the prohibition against duopolies (owning more than one station in a market) that currently requires a waiver and they haven’t been forthcoming, he said.
“We think the prospects of actually achieving deregulation are probably better than they have been at any point in in the recent past,” he said.
“I think that we have realized or have been able to articulate that our existential threat doesn’t necessarily come from other broadcasters. It comes from big tech and so we’re able to position deregulation on the Republican side of the aisle as pro-business and on the Democratic side of the aisle as pro-consumers under the auspices of maintaining local journalism … And so we’ve gotten traction on both sides of the aisle.
Nexstar execs have met with Ted Cruz, the incoming chair of the Commerce Committee, the jurisdictional body for deregulation, at least in in the Senate … And he’s told me directly that the way to do that is through an enlightened tax policy and enlightened regulatory policy. And he plans to bring forth, in the first hundred days, an ambitious deregulatory agenda. We’ve been working with Speaker [Mike] Johnson in the House to achieve a similar result.
The FCC and DOJ are also key players here. “We don’t just compete with other local television stations anymore. And confining us to 39% of the U.S when Big Tech can reach 100% of the screens in the country, you know, without any content restrictions or fairness requirements” is unfair.
Trump’s incoming FCC chief and big tech critic Brendan Carr has said the commission will re-examine ownership rules.
“He sees it. He gets it. We’ve been in contact with him and we’ continue to be in close contact,” Sook said. “I think the difference on the regulation is when we attempted this as an industry eight years ago [during Trump’s first term], there was not a unanimous consent around the path forward.”
He sees changes starting to take place rather quickly, in the first six months of the new administration.
English (US) ·