Broadcasters, Advocacy Groups Remain at Odds, in QR Replies
“No aspects” of NAB’s proposal to relax radio subcap rules “would require, or even directly encourage” radio groups to sell off their AM stations, the association replied on the quadrennial review in docket 18-349 (see story in the May 2 issue). The FCC shouldn't reject FM ownership deregulation “based on speculation about reduced demand for AM stations,” NAB said. “That would be the regulatory equivalent of cutting off radio’s nose to spite its face.” Other filers disagreed, in comments posted later Thursday.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Enact the association's proposal to allow top-four TV station combinations and its radio subcap proposal to remove AM caps and relax FM caps, NAB said. “The comments submitted by those parties opposing reform of the FCC’s local radio and TV ownership rules are fundamentally backward,” NAB said, topping its filing with a dictionary definition of “backward.”
Not all want to see more mergers and acquisitions. More “industry consolidation will not help small independent radio operators,” said radio licensee Taxi Productions. Ownership limits partially prevent large companies from having “overwhelming market share” and pricing smaller companies out, Taxi said. “If the number of AM stations a cluster can own is unlimited, group owners will be able to freeze out operators of single AM stations, which harms their ability to compete,” said Mount Wilson FM.
Numerous radio broadcasters and advocacy groups chimed in with replies on NAB's plan. “Only a select few broadcast groups could benefit under local ownership rule relaxation, but the result would create chaos for the broader radio industry, particularly AM radio,” said Salem Media. IHeartMedia said the FCC shouldn't consider tech companies as competitors to broadcast radio. “Other audio media, while competing in a broad ecosystem, are not substitutable for broadcast radio,” iHeart said.
Damaging AM radio would hurt broadcast diversity, said the League of United Latin American Citizens. Loosening radio ownership caps would “pave the way” for large broadcasters to reduce competition and assume more editorial control of media, said Public Citizen, Public Knowledge and other groups.
“The Local Radio Ownership Rule has failed to keep up with the paradigm shift that has occurred in the audio market,” filed radio broadcasters supporting the NAB plan. They included Beasley, Galaxy and Cumulus. “The rule no longer promotes competition in the marketplace, but hinders it,” they said. A separate filing from radio groups -- such as Connoisseur and Neuhoff -- supported total elimination of the subcaps. They said deregulation arguments don't “bear scrutiny.” They said he FCC should preserve the ownership limits for the sake of preventing stronger competitors to some market players.
TV broadcasters such as Nexstar, Gray and Tegna said the FCC should eliminate the top-four prohibition. The rule is “an unnecessary and arbitrary burden on broadcasters' ability to obtain operating efficiencies,” Nexstar said. Tech companies “face none of the local ownership restrictions placed on broadcasters,” said Ion. Further broadcast consolidation “will only exacerbate” the problem of rising retrans prices, said WTA in opposition to removing the top-four prohibition.
NAB uses “misleading assertions and hypocrisy” to “falsely equate” tech companies with effective competition for broadcasters, Free Press said. Without the diversity analyses ordered by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the FCC “cannot reasonably assess the impact” of ownership rule changes, Free Press said. “Evidence in the docket strongly suggests that further deregulation would affirmatively reduce diversity in broadcasting.”