It’s 2024 … except at the FCC where it’s still 1964 and regulating broadcasting is all the rage.
Drawing on the prevailing belief of that time that broadcasting was too powerful and concentrated not to be constrained and managed by the federal government, the agency — by a vote of its three-person Democratic majority — last week bucked the decades-long trend of loosening TV regs by affirming and tightening its Top-Four TV duopoly rule.
The rule says that broadcasters can’t own and operate more than one ABC, CBS, Fox or NBC affiliate in a market. In recent years, with the tacit blessing of the FCC staff, broadcasters have been able to circumvent the rule, mostly in 100-plus markets, by airing one or more stations on an LPTV station or multicast channel.
No more. The rule stays and the “loophole” is closed, the FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel and other FCC Dems proclaimed. Existing so-called virtual duopolies will be grandfathered, but they can’t be sold to another broadcaster without official FCC dispensation, which will cause all kinds of M&A complications.
The FCC says it will continue to consider Top-Four duopolies on a case-by-case basis, but we learned that’s a tease earlier this year when the FCC killed a proposed combo of two affils in Fargo, N.D., through one of Rosenworcel’s favorite tactics, bureaucratic indifference. Like the parties involved, I could see nothing wrong with the deal when I plugged in the FCC’s