The FCC’s Broadcast-Ownership Review: Will the Agency Open the Door for Comprehensive Reform?
On the docket for this week’s meeting of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on broadcast-ownership rules, which just so happens to arrive amid a profound shift in the industry’s content-distribution model from broadcast to streaming. Streaming services now command nearly half of all U.S. television viewing, while local broadcast stations struggle under regulations designed for a bygone era of spectrum scarcity.
Which rules the FCC ultimately adopts will go a long way toward determining whether the agency continues to oversee the decline of an industry strangled by obsolete regulations. The stakes extend beyond broadcasting itself to the survival of local journalism and the competitive balance between heavily regulated traditional media and unrestrained digital platforms.
The proposed rulemaking is part of the FCC’s 2022 Quadrennial Regulatory Review, a statutorily mandated assessment under Section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which requires the FCC to determine whether ownership rules remain “necessary in the public interest as the result of competition.”
As consumers increasingly ditch broadcast television for streaming services, a review of ownership rules demands a comprehensive deregulatory approach, rather than piecemeal reform to preserve the public-interest goals these rules were originally designed to serve.