WASHINGTON—Among the 233 filings received by the Federal Communications Commission responding to the agency's request for public comments on ownership rules governing broadcast station groups, a large number of filings from unions, consumer groups, civil rights groups, church groups, liberal organizations, free speech advocates and others have come out strongly opposed to any change to the current 39% ownership cap.
Those organizations reject arguments by broadcasters that eliminating the ownership rules will strengthen their ability to compete with big tech and improve local journalism. They contend that further consolidation will harm smaller broadcasters and in general hurt, not improve local journalism.
These filings, which raise a host of other issues, also generally argue that the Congress, not the FCC, is the only government body that can change or eliminate local ownership rules.
Such arguments do not seem to have an inside track at the Republican-majority agency, where FCC Chair Brendan Carr has repeatedly indicated his willingness to change the rules as a way of strengthening local broadcasters and dismissed DEI efforts that are backed by civil rights groups.
But the arguments indicate both widespread opposition to ownership rule changes in some quarters and highlight issues that are sure to be raised in lawsuits should the FCC decide to eliminate ownership caps. Those lawsuits could drag on for a considerable amount of time, which in turn would imperil or delay a number of deals that have been announced by station groups.
Unions: Consolidation will Hurt Employment, Wages
Filings by the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians - Communications Workers of America (NABET-CWA) bluntly argued that in assessing the competitive position of broadcasters “the Commission cannot ignore a key and incontrovertible fact: these companies continue to report considerable profits. If the broadcast industry actually faced an existential threat – or, as they describe, a `break glass moment’ where without `immediate regulatory relief” they will “cease to exist’ – the best evidence would be the industry’s financial performance. The broadcast companies are unable to produce this evidence because it does not exist. To ignore the fact that the industry reports record profits and healthy financial returns would be arbitrary and unreasonable.”
“Second, industry effectively asks the Commission to equate companies’ bottom lines with the regulatory goal of localism, which is both an absurd reading and demonstrably inaccurate,” the union continued. “To assume increased broadcaster profits will serve the public interest defies history and the facts in the record. Consolidation so far has only harmed localism, news, and workers – in direct contrast with the requirements of the Communications Act. We don’t have to guess what happens with increased consolidation because history and the record have already shown us: a reduced variety of news content, severe cuts to staff, declining newsroom capacity, and enormous harm to local news. To accept the broadcast industry’s argument means the Commission would be abandoning its legal obligation to hold broadcast licensees to their obligation to serve localism and the public interest, a cornerstone of broadcast regulation as old as the 1934 Communications Act.”
“Finally, the record confirms that, legally, the Commission cannot change the 39 percent cap and must properly implement it by repealing the UHF discount,” the filing concluded.
In its initial filing with the FCC, the NABET-CWA also attached a study blasting Nexstar for paying low wages that was based on a survey of workers and an analysis of labor market data in the first half of 2025.
“Respondents reported poverty wages and widespread worry about meeting basic financial obligations like housing, medical care, and groceries,” the study concluded.
In addition, it found that the majority (62%) of Nexstar workers earn less than a living wage for their metro area for a single person without children and 89% earn less than a living wage for their metro area for a single person with one child.
That forced “a majority (63%) of workers rely on family, friends or public assistance to get by. A majority of survey respondents feel financially insecure: 87% worried about meeting financial obligations sometimes (57%) or often (30%). The majority of survey respondents report delaying necessary medical care (55%) and buying groceries (53%) among their struggles to get by on Nexstar’s low wages,” the researchers noted.
The study also concluded that “The wages reported by workers indicate that Nexstar pays well below its peers in the industry. Nexstar pays 22% less than the median wage, on average, for the most common occupations surveyed. Workers also report that they have to skip breaks and often work in understaffed departments.”
“Nexstar’s ability to depress wages and lower standards is due largely to its behemoth status in an already highly consolidated industry,” the union-backed study argued. “If broadcasters are able to merge without limit, we will see low wages, poor work conditions, and further degradation of an already declining local news ecosystem.”
Broadcasters: Consolidation will Preserve Jobs
As previously reported, filings by the NAB, Nexstar and other broadcasters have strongly pushed back on those arguments.
“Commenters also claim that eliminating the national cap will somehow lead to a decline in employment, lower wages and benefits, and decreased job security,” a joint filing by the NAB, Nexstar and other broadcasters said. “But regulating the labor market is not one of the FCC’s functions under the Act. As a matter of logic, moreover, this argument misses the mark. They claim that broadcast TV station groups are not increasing their staffing levels, and yet, somehow, they believe that by preserving the status quo and stopping stations from growing nationally, the number of reporters employed in newsrooms would somehow magically increase or even stay the same…In fact, the one sure way to guarantee that newsroom employment decreases is by continuing to place broadcast TV stations at a competitive disadvantage such that stations are less profitable, unprofitable, or even insolvent. The fate of the newspaper industry is highly instructive here.”
More specifically, the filing by broadcasters argued that “NABET-CWA also claims consolidation of economic power will harm workers. But this argument rests on a flawed premise. Eliminating the national cap merely will allow broadcast station groups to extend their reach into other markets where they do not currently operate. In such a case, they will be competing for workers in an entirely new geographic area. As explained earlier, eliminating the national cap will facilitate expansion – not consolidation. And expansion to national scale will, for myriad reasons set forth in the record here, redound to the benefit of TV broadcasters and, more importantly, to viewers of free over-the-air television services throughout the country.”
The joint filing by broadcasters did not address the fact that in the press release for the proposed Nexstar acquisition of Tegna, Nexstar reported that “[b]ased on our estimates for 2025, Nexstar expects to generate annual net synergies of approximately $300 million from a combination of revenue synergies and net operating expense reductions.”
Civil Rights Groups: Consolidation with Hurt Diversity, Small Broadcasters
A number of groups representing Hispanic, Asian, African American consumers, broadcasters and journalists have also voiced their opposition to the elimination of ownership caps.
In addition to arguing that the FCC does not have the authority to lift caps set by Congress, those groups argue that the creation of gigantic broadcast station groups will harm the competitive position of smaller broadcasters, which in turn will reduce diversity in media ownership.
For example, a filing by United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, the Hispanic Federation, Japanese American Citizens League, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, National Consumer Law Center, on behalf of its low-income clients, and the National Hispanic Media Coalition argued: “Not only is the Commission prohibited from changing the National TV Audience Cap, but relaxing media ownership limits will also further exacerbate already-low competition, localism, viewpoint diversity and ownership diversity and will harm workers.”
The filing also warned that the FCC’s current policy of regulating employment decisions by refusing to approve mergers would mean that more media companies would abandon their DEI efforts. FCC action has already forced Verizon, Paramount and others to promise to end DEI programs.
“Media diversity has long been a top priority of the civil rights community because we understand that meaningful protection of civil rights relies in great measure on an accurate, independent, and diverse media that serves the constituencies we represent,” the groups stressed. “Ownership caps prevent individual companies from dominating national or local markets. A wider number of owners means it is more likely that a woman or person of color, or a member of any other underrepresented group, can purchase a station.”
In a separate filing, the Hispanic Federation, which is a nonprofit membership and advocacy organization with a network of over 850 organizations across the country, concluded “that the 39% broadcasting consolidation cap must be maintained in light of the vital role that broadcasting plays in local communities – particularly Latino communities – as well as the broadcasting spectrum’s unique status as a national resource.”
“While we remain committed to the goal of achieving regulatory parity between digital and traditional broadcast media, expanded conversations and research highlight the current proposal is more likely to harm consumers than achieve a competitive telecommunications landscape,” the group concluded. “As such, in keeping with our longstanding history serving disadvantaged communities across the United States, Hispanic Federation felt it prudent to outline our objections to the Rule. While the above comment effectively highlights ongoing challenges in the modern media landscape, we believe that its recommendations insufficiently capture the vital, even unique place of traditional broadcast media in vulnerable communities, that in turn warrants commensurately distinct protections from consolidating marketplace forces. As such, Hispanic Federation urges the FCC to convene a negotiated rulemaking committee to be comprised of leading scholars, industry groups, and representatives of communities vulnerable to disruptions in broadcasting market conditions to secure a productive, just, and competitive broadcasting regulatory environment.”
Many more filing by individuals and groups opposing consolidation and the elimination of ownership caps can be found here.
[Editor's note: This article is part of an ongoing series of articles on the FCC's ownership rules. We plan to publish on August 29 a separate article detailing some of the arguments against lifting the ownership cap that are being made by pay TV companies and organizations backed by pay TV operations, broadband providers and telcos.]
