The Federal Communications Commission voted to eliminate a rule Thursday that stopped any one company from owning so many TV stations that they reach more than 39% of American households. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a close ally of President Donald Trump, had been an advocate of the move but the lone Democratic commissioner says that only Congress can scrap the rule.
The 39% rule was established in 2004, when Congress raised the cap from 35% in the 1990s. The idea is that no single company should be able to broadcast to an overwhelming share of the U.S. population under the theory that it reduces broadcasting competition and allows just a handful of powerful people to dominate the national conversation.
FCC claims that it’s just aligning its rules to the current market realities, going so far as to insist this will be in the public interest, a laughable claim in an age of hyper-consolidation of media companies.
“This will empower the FCC to approve deals that promote the public interest while allowing the agency to reject any deals that do not meet that standard,” the FCC said in a statement published online.
The FCC says it will now decide case by case, which means one can imagine a world where Republican-friendly mergers are approved while any TV stations that are seen as too Democrat-friendly would be blocked. Because that’s the kind of regulatory environment Americans live in under the Trump regime.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the one Democrat on the commission, called the rule change “unlawful on its face,” noting that Congress set up the cap under federal law and only Congress can change it. She rejected the argument that TV stations face so much competition from social media that the only solution is to allow more consolidation of TV ownership.
“Eliminating the cap does not free local broadcasters from economic pressure, it just changes who is doing the squeezing,” Gomez said in a statement.
“The large station groups positioned to grow even larger under this decision are not local broadcasters, they are national companies that own local stations and increasingly dictate what airs on them,” continued Gomez. “Trading a squeeze from Big Tech for a squeeze from Big Media does nothing to protect the communities this cap was designed to serve.”
Brendan Carr has worked as President Trump’s attack dog in the media sphere, attempting to get Jimmy Kimmel fired for making fun of the president and installing a “bias monitor” at CBS. Trump has previously said that any network that criticizes him should lose its broadcast license.
“I mean, they’re getting a license,” Trump said in 2025. “I would think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr. I think Brendan Carr is outstanding. He’s a patriot. He loves our country, and he’s a tough guy. So we’ll have to see.”
Trump doesn’t have to worry about that nearly as much these days, as his billionaire cronies buy up what’s left of legacy media. The federal government under Trump approved the merger of SkyDance and Paramount, handing David Ellison control of CBS News, among other major media brands. And Ellison’s purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery has also been approved, potentially handing control of CNN to the billionaire son of Larry Ellison, though that merger is currently tied up in litigation from Democratic Attorneys General.
Anna Gomez pointed to another merger, Nexstar and Tegna, which created a behemoth that reaches over 70% of U.S. households.
“We do not have to look far for a warning sign of where that consolidation leads. When this Commission unlawfully waived the cap to clear the way for the Nexstar-TEGNA merger, a federal judge halted the deal, finding that the states and DirecTV are likely to succeed in proving it violates antitrust law,” wrote Gomez.
“Further, broadcasting does not need to look outside the world of journalism for a second warning. Over roughly the same period that the largest newspaper chains grew their share of the industry from one-third to 70 percent, the country lost more than 3,300 newspapers. Consolidation did not save that industry, it concentrated what was left of it while the industry itself collapsed.”
English (US) ·