The FCC’s multi-year effort to kill media consolidation rules at the behest of giants like Sinclair Broadcasting has been rejected by the courts, who ruled the agency failed to seriously consider the negative impact unchecked media monopolies have on the public at large.
In a 2-1 new ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit forced the FCC to go back to the drawing board in its quest to make life easier for media giants, arguing the agency “did not adequately consider the effect its sweeping rule changes will have on ownership of broadcast media by women and racial minorities.”
In 2017, Pai’s FCC voted to eliminate a cap preventing any one broadcaster from reaching more than 39 percent of the nation, a 77-year-old rule requiring broadcasters keep a local studio in the towns they service (to encourage community participation), as well as rules preventing broadcasters from owning more than two TV stations and one radio station in the same market.
These changes were intended to help companies like Sinclair Broadcasting, whose proposed $3.7 billion merger with Tribune Media would have given the company ownership of more than 230 broadcast stations, reaching 72 percent of the American public. That deal was scuttled last year after Sinclair was accused of misleading the FCC to gain regulatory approval.
