In Washington on Thursday morning, FCC commissioners and members of the public gathered at the agency’s headquarters for what is typically an unremarkable affair. Under fluorescent lights, with classroom-style tables arranged on an institutional gray-and-blue diamond carpet, Brendan Carr called the hearing to order.
However, despite the unremarkable setting in which the meeting was convened, there was a consequential item on the agenda: a rule preventing any one company from owning local television stations reaching more than 39% of the country.
After a brief discussion and without much fanfare, Carr and the other Republican on the commission, Olivia Trusty, voted 2-1 to scrap the decades-old ownership cap in favor of what Carr described as a “case-by-case” review of deals, handing Donald Trump's corporate media allies a massive victory in their fight to control more of the national information landscape.
Carr said the move was designed to increase competition in the face of streaming and Big Tech. But given the FCC’s actions over the past year, it is difficult to see this as anything other than yet another gift to the administration’s media allies, most notably Nexstar and Sinclair, allowing companies already wielding enormous influence over local television to become even larger.
For Nexstar, which has cozied up to the Trump administration while it attempts to acquire rival station owner Tegna in a deal that would allow it to reach some 80% of American television households, the news was cause for celebration. "The FCC's decision to eliminate the broadcast ownership cap is a welcome, necessary and long-overdue recognition of today’s competitive landscape, which is dominated by legacy Big Media and Big Tech,” the Texas-based company said in a statement.
Sinclair, another enormous station group and reliable MAGA ally, also stands to benefit. The company, led by longtime Republican donor David Smith, has repeatedly forced its local stations to air nationally produced “must-run” segments carrying right-wing talking points and MAGA propaganda. The end of the ownership cap gives Sinclair—and companies like it—even more room to turn local television stations into national political megaphones.
And we have already seen how much political influence these companies are willing to wield.
Last year, when Disney-owned ABC yanked Jimmy Kimmel’s show off the air amid pressure from the Trump administration, Nexstar announced that it would not air Kimmel’s program on the dozens of ABC affiliates it controls. Sinclair also refused to return Kimmel to its stations until the comedian made a “meaningful personal donation” to Charlie Kirk’s family and Turning Point USA.
Trump himself has also made clear that he sees these media allies as part of the broader fight against news outlets who produce critical reporting on his actions.
"We need more competition against THE ENEMY, the Fake News National TV Networks,” he wrote on his Truth Social page. “Letting Good Deals get done like Nexstar – Tegna will help knock out the Fake News because there will be more competition, and at a higher and more sophisticated level."
These are the companies Carr is now making it easier to grow.
The commission’s lone Democrat, Anna Gomez, called Thursday’s decision “unlawful on its face” and noted that Congress established the 39% limit.
“Eliminating the cap does not free local broadcasters from economic pressure, it just changes who is doing the squeezing,” she said. “The large station groups positioned to grow even larger under this decision are not local broadcasters, they are national companies that own local stations and increasingly dictate what airs on them.”
When a company owns more stations—what is often seen in markets as a “duopoly”—it can consolidate newsrooms, centralize editorial decisions and reduce the number of independent voices producing news for local communities. This has already happened across the country where station groups have combined operations and cut local journalism in the name of efficiency.
While there is certainly an argument that an ownership rule created for a very different media environment should be reconsidered, eliminating the limit entirely and handing Carr’s FCC the power to approve consolidation on a case-by-case basis is one clearly designed to create a powerful incentive. Especially when the companies poised to benefit have spent the past year demonstrating their willingness to accommodate the Trump administration’s demands.
In column last month in Breitbart, Carr argued that the ownership cap is actually undermining local news, saying that stations are “struggling to find the resources to produce live, trusted, and local news programming” and are increasingly becoming “little more than mouthpieces for programming produced in New York and Hollywood.”
By scrapping the ownership rule, Carr contended, the government would “restore balance to the broadcast airwaves”—a not-so-subtle clue to what this is really about. Carr’s aggressive use of the FCC to pressure media companies has even begun to worry some Republicans.
“It is not government’s job to censor speech, and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police,” Sen. Ted Cruz told Punchbowl said this spring.
Sen. John Kennedy was even more blunt during a hearing this week with FCC general counsel Adam Candeub.
“Sometimes the FCC scares me right now,” the Louisiana Republican said. “I don’t like some of the stuff that is said on television, but what business is it of the FCC?”
In the meantime, Carr has handed Trump’s media allies precisely what they have been asking for: a path to get even bigger, with fewer restrictions standing in their way. For communities across the country, that is hardly a recipe for more competition or diversity. Instead, it clears the way for Trump’s MAGA-friendly media allies to control even more of what Americans see and hear.
