The Federal Communications Commission is in the process of reexamining its rules on media ownership, specifically in regards to local broadcasters, Axios reports.
The agency will try to determine whether its current rule against a company owning more than two stations in a given market, and only one in the top four, “continues to foster competition, the stated primary goal of the rule, and thus should be retained or whether the promotion of localism or viewpoint diversity also provides justification for retaining the rule.”
Paul Gallant of the Cowen Washington Research Group, told Axios that scrapping the rule “would really improve the long term health of TV stations, especially in smaller markets.”
It will also see if a rule against two of the top four networks in the nation merging at a local level is necessary.
The FCC made a clear push towards deregulation last year, after it eased the rules on one person owning a broadcast station and a newspaper in the same media market, and removed a rule stating that there must be eight separately owned stations in any market.
“The reason they're doing this is the FCC and Trump administration think that deregulation is the best way to allow legacy media to better compete with tech giants, rather than adding regulations on tech,” Axios’ Sara Fischer noted last week.
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