President Donald J. Trump continues to shake Washington to its core, highlighting and reforming issues that have been on the back burner for decades. Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — led by Brendan Carr, Anna Gomez, and Olivia Trusty — is no exception, publicly raising the specter of abolishing the FCC’s national ownership cap.
For the media establishment, this is like touching the third rail. For generations, from Dan Rather to Jimmy Kimmel, Americans have been force-fed a steady diet of liberalism from the big three television channels.
Ending the ownership cap would allow conservative local broadcasters to compete with the likes of networks ABC and force broadcasts to actually reflect the country’s values.
The national ownership cap was first adopted in 1941, long before YouTube, streaming services, and even cable TV. Current regulations forbid any one broadcaster from owning stations that reach more than 39 percent of American households.
Importantly, this applies only to the ownership of stations, not the ownership of programming. So while Disney owns ABC and can force Jimmy Kimmel into 100 percent of households, a single company can own only 39 percent of the local ABC affiliates he’s broadcast on.
This is important because the owners of those stations have emerged as an important check on left-wing misinformation. After Disney reinstated Kimmel, station owners Sinclair and Nexstar initially objected by refusing to broadcast his show. Yet fractured by their limited ownership shares, the far more powerful Disney ultimately got its way.
By abolishing the FCC’s ownership cap, the Trump administration can allow the opportunity for more right-leaning affiliate owners to become more influential. By buying more stations, they can give conservatives a powerful voice at the broadcast TV table.
Yet, puzzlingly, some people who should get this point are actually fighting it. Among them is the CEO of Newsmax, a supposed conservative outlet, who warns that lifting the cap “would harm local broadcasting TV.”
Newsmax TV is a small cable network and not subject to the cap, so it may benefit from the government effectively barring more conservative competition in the marketplace. But that doesn’t make it right. Conservatives who believe in free enterprise should not be vocally encouraging Big Brother to continue barring broadcast TV companies like Sinclair and Nexstar from competing in the free market.
Opponents to lifting the ownership cap worry that removing it will cause similar consolidation among broadcast TV affiliates that we saw with radio stations back in the 1990s. What they miss is that consolidation is already here. Multinational corporations like Disney exercise enormous control over TV networks like ABC and CBS, using them to inflict their values on the rest of us. Why should only right-leaning affiliate owners have their hands tied?
If eliminating the ownership cap was a threat to broadcast TV, you’d think the TV broadcasters would be fighting to keep it. Yet the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), which represents broadcast stations, vehemently opposes the cap.
A brief sent by the NAB to the FCC back in August didn’t hold back: the ownership cap, it says, “unfairly and improperly skews the market in favor of streaming platforms and other national and international technology and media conglomerates.” It adds, “No other medium faces even a remotely similar restriction.”
That’s another reason to eliminate the cap: not just politics but business sense. As Netflix and HBO compete for viewers, affiliate owners are hamstrung from engaging in the same nationwide competition. This has made broadcast stations less efficient and less responsive to their customers.
No wonder Jimmy Kimmel is still on the air. No wonder broadcast TV viewership is declining.
It’s time for Trump’s FCC to bring broadcast TV into the 21st century. Nowadays, the Left controls CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, PBS, Hulu, YouTube, half of TikTok…the list goes on.
Conservative cable outlets are thankfully growing too, but they need conservative broadcast stations to grow in tandem. That’s the only way the right will ever attain the reach it needs.
All conservatives stand to benefit from lifting the ownership cap, whether they’re on broadcast, cable, the internet, or just watching at home. This evens the playing field for conservatives in another institution that has been historically dominated by the Left.
Sean Spicer (@SeanSpicer), the host of The Sean Spicer Show, is a former Press Secretary to President Donald J. Trump.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Fox News)
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