Minor Change in FCC TV Ownership Rules Becomes Effective on March 18th

As we reported earlier, in response to a court order, the FCC finally completed its 2018 review of its ownership rules last December. After years of delay, the only change was tightening the ownership rules for local TV stations. Previously, the limitations on owning more than one of the top 4 stations in a market did not include LPTV or digital channels. Under its most recent decision, it has been made clear that one TV station cannot acquire the Top 4 network programming from another station in its market and move that programming to a commonly owned LPTV or multicast stream without seeking a prior FCC waiver.

You can see the FCC’s notice here.

You can see the FCC decision here.

You can see a discussion from noted communications attorney David Oxenford here.