The FCC voted 2-1 on Thursday to eliminate the 39% national TV ownership cap — the rule that prevented any single company from owning broadcast stations reaching more than 39% of U.S. TV households. Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioner Olivia Trusty voted yes; Commissioner Anna Gomez voted no. Congress set that 39% ceiling as a hard limit in the 2004 Consolidated Appropriations Act, and explicitly stripped the FCC of its regular review authority over it. The new framework replaces the fixed cap with a case-by-case public interest review of proposed acquisitions. Companies like Nexstar, Sinclair, Gray Television, and Fox are now free to pursue deals they couldn't before.

1. Local TV Is Losing to Streaming (FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, National Association of Broadcasters, Nexstar)

The 39% cap was protecting big national programmers, not local communities — and local stations are paying for it.

Big streamers got more protection from this rule than local TV did. Carr argued the cap, designed decades ago, shields dominant national programmers like Disney and Comcast more than it protects communities. As streaming has taken audiences and ad revenue from local broadcast stations, those stations have had to pay increasing fees to air national programming, leaving less money for local news.

Local TV can't survive the streaming era alone. National Association of Broadcasters President Curtis LeGeyt warned that local TV is on track to go the way of local newspapers without regulatory relief. Nexstar called the vote "welcome, necessary and long-overdue," saying broadcasters had been "handcuffed" by rules that don't apply to Google, Meta, or Netflix. Carr said the new framework lets regulators weigh each deal on its own merits rather than enforce a blunt percentage across a transformed media landscape.

2. But Bigger Ownership Kills Local News (Commissioner Anna Gomez, Free Press, American Television Alliance)

Consolidation already shrank local newsrooms. This vote hands the biggest station groups a license to grow even larger.

Congress set this limit, and the FCC isn't allowed to remove it. Commissioner Gomez called the order "unlawful on its face," arguing Congress wrote the cap into statute and only Congress can change it. Free Press plans to file suit immediately. General counsel Matt Wood said the order enables "Trump-aligned billionaires to swallow up stations wherever and whenever they please." The American Television Alliance said they were "confident that reviewing courts will quickly overturn this misguided action."

Discretionary review gives the FCC political leverage over newsrooms. Gomez warned that replacing the hard cap with case-by-case judgment means the commission can reward or punish stations based on how their coverage lands with the administration. She said even "conservative and religious broadcasters" feared this misuse. Public Knowledge Legal Director John Bergmayer said the change "gives distant corporate headquarters more control of what airs" and pressures stations to cut local reporters.

3. Still, the FCC Didn't Have the Authority to Do This (Former Rep. Tom DeLay, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy)

Some conservatives and cable interests are opposing this — not because they want the cap, but because they think Congress, not a regulator, has to repeal it.

Agencies can't repeal what Congress wrote into law. Tom DeLay, the Republican who personally negotiated the 39% ceiling in 2004 with Senator Ted Stevens, argued after the vote that regulatory agencies cannot defy or modify laws Congress enacted — if Chairman Carr wants to raise the cap, he should ask Congress to pass a law. Regulatory attorney Braden Perry put challengers' odds at "better than even" on that statutory authority question. The Supreme Court's 1994 MCI v. AT&T ruling defined an agency's power to "modify" a rule as "moderate change," not wholesale elimination. Opponents say that precedent applies directly here.

This vote also shifts power toward large station groups in cable negotiations. Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy had threatened legal action since February if the FCC moved on the cap, arguing that a larger Nexstar would gain leverage in carriage fee fights against cable and satellite providers — squeezing smaller channels in the process. As of Friday morning, Newsmax hadn't said whether it would file suit.

Where This Lands

The FCC says it'll litigate this and see where it goes. Free Press and the American Television Alliance promised suits immediately, and their legal argument is specific: Congress didn't just set the 39% cap — it explicitly stripped the FCC of its power to review or change it in subsequent proceedings. Broadcasters say scale is a precondition for survival in the streaming era. Local news advocates say the past decade of broadcast consolidation already shows what comes next.

Sources