Last week, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr released the tentative agenda for the July 24 Open Commission Meeting. Missing from that agenda, unfortunately, is any mention of long-anticipated broadcast deregulation. That said, it is still widely expected to move forward later this year.
Meanwhile, signs of what’s to come may already be appearing. Just this week, Gray Television and The E.W. Scripps Co. announced a strategic station swap across five markets. Their stated goals: improve operational performance, create efficiencies and better serve local communities with more robust local coverage.
Is this the opening salvo of broader realignment? Could companies like Sinclair, Nexstar, Tegna and others soon follow suit? Might Scripps and Gray know more than the rest of us, perhaps sensing a green light from a deregulatory FCC aligned with the current administration’s broader “delete, delete, delete” posture toward legacy regulations?
Recent FCC behavior supports this possibility. In March, the commission granted Gray a waiver to acquire KXLT, the Fox affiliate in Rochester, Minn., despite already operating the NBC affiliate KTTC there. Similar waivers have gone to other broadcasters, such as Sinclair’s recent sale of stations to Rincon. This pattern suggests that station trading activity could accelerate rapidly if ownership restrictions and Top 4 rules are officially relaxed.
Speculation is already swirling about who might buy, sell or trade stations if deregulation proceeds. Most attention has focused on the usual suspects: Nexstar, Sinclair, Gray, Scripps and Tegna. But at last month’s TV of Tomorrow (TVOT) Summit in San Francisco, a panel