FCC Modernizes Broadcast Ownership Rules

Media Contact:
Janice Wise, (202) 418-8165
janice.wise@fcc.gov

For Immediate Release

FCC MODERNIZES BROADCAST OWNERSHIP RULES AND DECIDES TO ESTABLISH A NEW INCUBATOR PROGRAM TO PROMOTE BROADCAST OWNERSHIP DIVERSITY

WASHINGTON, November 16, 2017 — The Federal Communications Commission today voted to modernize its broadcast ownership rules and to help promote ownership diversity in the broadcast industry. These actions will provide broadcasters and local newspapers with a greater opportunity to compete in the digital age and will help ensure a diversity of viewpoints in local markets.

Congress requires the Commission to review its broadcast ownership rules every four years to determine if they are in the public interest as the result of competition and if not, to repeal or modify them. For too long, the Commission has failed to acknowledge the pace of change in the media marketplace by maintaining analog broadcast ownership rules that do not reflect today’s digital age. For instance, the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule that the Commission eliminates today dates back to 1975. By modernizing these outdated rules, broadcast stations and local newspapers will be able to more easily invest in local news and content and improve service to their local communities for the benefit of consumers.

Today’s Order on Reconsideration addresses several petitions for reconsideration of the Commission’s August 2016 Order in the 2010/2014 Quadrennial Regulatory Review that left the outdated broadcast ownership rules largely unchanged. Specifically, today the Commission eliminates the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule, Radio/Television Cross-Ownership Rule, and Television Joint Sales Agreement Attribution Rule.

The Order also modifies the Local Television Ownership Rule to better reflect competitive conditions in local markets by eliminating the Eight-Voices Test, which requires at least eight independently owned television stations to remain in a market before any entity may own two television stations in that market. The Order also permits exceptions to the prohibition on an entity owning two of the top four stations in a market if it can be shown that a particular transaction would be in the public interest. The Order does not address the issue of the national ownership cap and the associated UHF discount which are not part of the Quadrennial Review, and which will be considered in a separate proceeding later this year.

Lastly, in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Commission decides to establish, and seeks comment on how to implement and structure, a new incubator program in which established broadcasters would help facilitate entry by new voices into the marketplace by providing access to capital and/or technical expertise to new entrants and small businesses. The program has broad support and will help promote ownership diversity in the broadcast industry.

Action by the Commission November 16, 2017 by Order on Reconsideration and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FCC 17-156). Chairman Pai, Commissioners O’Rielly and Carr approving. Commissioners Clyburn and Rosenworcel dissenting. Chairman Pai, Commissioners Clyburn, O’Rielly, Carr and Rosenworcel issuing separate statements.

MB Docket No. 14-50; MB Docket No. 09-182; MB Docket No. 07-294; MB Docket No. 04-256; MB Docket No. 17-289

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1. Full Dissenting Statement from Commissioner Clyburn: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db1116/DOC-347796A4.pdf

2. Full Dissenting Statement from Commissioner Rosenworcel: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db1116/DOC-347796A7.pdf
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Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel dissenting states:

"Today the FCC dismantles those values. Instead of engaging in thoughtful reform—which we should do—this agency sets its most basic values on fire. They are gone. As a result of this decision, wherever you live the FCC is giving the green light for a single company to own the newspaper and multiple television and radio stations in your community. I am hard pressed to see any commitment to diversity, localism, or competition in that result.

We should be troubled. Because we are not going to remedy what ails our media today with this rush of new consolidation. We are not going to fix our ability to ferret fact from fiction by doubling down on just a handful of companies controlling our public airwaves. We are not going to be able to remedy the way the highest level in government is now comfortable stirring up angry sentiment, denouncing news as false facts, and bestowing favors on outlets with narratives that flatter those in power
rather than offer the hard-hitting assessments we need as citizens. Instead we clear the way for more mergers of greater magnitude—like the one presently before us—which will benefit heartily from the destruction of these policies today.

Finally, a note on diversity. Media ownership matters because what we see on our screens says so much about who we are as a individuals, as communities, and as a nation. Study a bit of history and you can only come to one conclusion: consolidation will make our stations look less and less like the communities they serve. Women and minorities have struggled for too long to take the reins at media outlets. A modest rule-making on an incubator isn’t going to get us where we need to go. It’s a high price to pay for the damage this order does and that is an exchange I am unwilling to make.

I dissent."


Commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn dissenting states:

"The problems with this Order on Reconsideration are so glaring – both on process and substance, it is truly hard to decide just where to begin.

Do I start by describing why the wholesale elimination of key media ownership rules will harm localism, diversity, and competition? Do I focus on the number of loopholes this Commission blesses through this Order? Or do I highlight how the FCC majority has chosen to take some of the same facts used by this Commission just over a year ago to reach the exact opposite conclusions? After I address each of these failures in greater detail, allow me to explain the alternative proposal I put forward to my
colleagues.

Let me begin by establishing this: that despite what you have been told about the genesis of this Order, it is not really about helping small, struggling broadcasters or newspapers. While the jury is still out on whether it could actually achieve that goal, this is really about helping large media companies grow even larger which is actually in stark contrast to what the President said just last week in discussing the importance of having as “many news outlets as you can.”1 Because if our aim were to provide help for the smallest entities in the tiniest of media markets, we would have adopted a narrowly tailored proposal focused expressly on these financially challenged stations. Instead, today’s action, coupled with recent FCC actions, including the reinstatement of the UHF discount and the elimination of the Main Studio Rule, we have paved the way for a new crop of broadcast media empires that will be light years removed from the very local communities they are supposed to serve.

These media titans will have degrees of power far beyond the imagination of our local communities. Our local outlets that inform us of what is happening in our community; our outlets investigate allegations of improprieties within government; they inform us of whether we need an umbrella or an overcoat; and they are there on the ground before, during, and after a major natural or man-made disaster. Our local stations clearly play a unique role in our communities and unlike those 24-
hour cable news networks, our local outlets deliver their broadcast signal using the public airwaves and with that comes, the responsibility to serve the public interest.

Now if you were to stop someone randomly on the street and ask them who owns their local television or radio station, how many people would be able to answer? Would they know if two out of the top four television stations in their community had the same owner and a third station was affiliated with the stations through a sharing agreement? Would they know that their local news anchor is reporting a story using the same script as dozens of other stations around the country, or even another station in their own community? While these may not be top of mind questions for most Americans, the answers matter and viewers or listeners have a right to know those answers. They should also be aware that these practices are already happening today and when this Order is adopted, the floodgates to more consolidation will come without transparency or accountability.