NAB Asks FCC to Scrap TV National Ownership Rules

As expected, NAB has written to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and asked that the FCC eliminate the national ownership rules for television.  The rules, enacted during the analog era, currently limit television station ownership audience reach to 39% of U.S. TV households.  (UHF stations are considered to have half the reach of VHF stations.)

NAB’s letter is a well-thought-out critique of an antiquated rule.  It begins with the following observations:

“The Commission has maintained rules strictly limiting the ownership of broadcast television stations nationally for nearly 85 years. 1 For more than two decades, the national TV rule has prohibited any entity from owning local commercial TV stations reaching, in the aggregate, more than 39 percent of the total number of TV households in the nation. 2 This outmoded rule prevents broadcasters – but not any other video service providers – from competing for audiences and vital advertising revenues across the county and harms the public’s free, over the-air (OTA) television service. The time to eliminate this harmful restriction is now.”

The letter goes on to document the current state of the marketplace.  The rise of streaming and the ability of a few digital platforms to obtain more advertising revenue than ra

dio and television combined.  It argues further that the rules harm a local station’s ability to compete and serve its community.  This is a marketplace that was never envisioned when the rules were last revised in the 1990s.

The letter is worth reading.  As noted previously, NYSBA supports the elimination of the FCC’s national ownership caps.  We also support a complete revision of the radio ownership rules.

You can access NAB’s letter here.