WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission, which is continuing to ramp up its operations after the end of the federal government shut, has set deadlines for comments and reply comments in its 2022 Quadrennial Review (MB Docket No. 22-459)
On September 30, 2025, the Commission adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to seek comment on the Commission’s media ownership rules pursuant to section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which directs the Commission to review such rules every four years to determine whether they remain “necessary in the public interest as the result of competition” and to “repeal or modify any regulation [that it] determines to be no longer in the public interest.”
The 2022 Quadrennial Regulatory Review – Review of the Commission’s Broadcast Ownership Rules and Other Rules is a particularly important one for broadcasters as several station groups have announced or seem to be pursuing deals that would put them over existing ownership caps.
The 2022 Quadrennial review will take up three rules, the Local Radio Ownership Rule, the Local Television Ownership Rule, and the Dual Network Rule. The NPRM set deadlines for filing comments and reply comments at 30 and 60 days, after publication of the NPRM in the Federal Register.
In a newly filed Public Notice the FCC's Media Bureau announce that the NPRM was published in the Federal Register on November 17, 2025, shortly after the end of the government shutdown. That means comments must be submitted no later than December 17, 2025 and that reply comments must be submitted no later than January 16, 2026.
The NPRM is available on the Commission’s website at https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-64A1.pdf.
