LAS VEGAS—In a wide-ranging fireside chat at CES 2026, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr reiterated the importance of local news and information provided by local broadcasters and their rollout of NextGen TV broadcasts.
Carr declined, however, to take a position on whether the FCC would impose mandates requiring TV to be able to receive 3.0 signals and reaffirmed his commitment to enforcing public interest standards on broadcast content in ways that have been controversial with broadcasters and free speech advocates.
In the interview with Carr, Gary Shapiro, executive chair and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, repeatedly praised Carr and President Donald Trump.
At one point, Shapiro called Trump’s speech on AI “the best speech I've heard any president or national leader give on technology,” prompting Carr to quip that Shapiro’s “second favorite” speech by Trump must have been the one the president made regarding tariffs, a policy that has been opposed by the CTA.
In contrast, Shapiro did not mention critics who have contended that the public interest standards being imposed on broadcasters might violate free speech or First Amendment rights.
Shapiro did, however, cite statistics showing that viewers were much more likely to watch video over streaming platforms and cable. He also asked Carr if the FCC had plans to identify lesser-used spectrum and potentially auction it off.
In terms of the public-nterest standard, Carr said, “broadcasters are a very, very unique distribution medium that because the government is picking a winner and loser. [Because] you get a license, you get this microphone, you get to speak, you don't necessarily get to conduct yourself the same way you would if you were on a podcast or a soapbox or a cable chain.”
“So one thing that I've been working on is attempting to reinvigorating the FCC public interest standard,” Carr said. “Now some people have raised concerns about that. They don't want to comply with our public-interest obligations, and I think there are a couple options there. One, if you're a broadcaster and don't like the fact of that public-interest obligation, you can turn your license in. There's lots of different ways to distribute your content. You can become a cable channel, you become a podcast, you become a YouTube channel. If you want the unique privilege of broadcasting your content over the airways and…all the benefits that come with it, retrans, must-carry, [and] various rights, then you’ve got to comply with public interest in it.”
Another option, Carr said, in terms of the public interest standard would be to “put that spectrum back up for auction. If you want to continue to broadcast without the public interest obligation, then maybe let everyone have a fair and free shot at purchasing that spectrum without the public-interest obligation.”
In terms of the transition to NextGen TV, Carr said: “As a general matter, we're really supportive of this transition to 3.0 because it can be not just better television, but it can also be used for data casting, which can be a new competitive service, and so we're looking at all those options. We've asked some questions…We're gonna look at it all…[What] is the future of broadcasting? What does local broadcasting look like in five years and 10 years and 15 years? And that is something that I spend a lot of time thinking about, and how do we get the regulatory framework right?
“If you care about local news and local reporting in this country, if you think that's valuable as a public interest, as a national interest, right now, local broadcast television stations are the ones that are almost exclusively, in many cases, doing it,” Carr added. “Look at newspapers. They [have been closing]...by the dozens all across the country. Your local 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock TV news are sort of the last of the real local gumshoes [on the ground] report. Now I love that we're getting a lot more social media as well…But I still think that institutionally, those local broadcasters play a key role.”
Finding a way to strengthen those efforts is important for the FCC, he added, “because the competition is fierce, the ad revenue is declining.”
Carr said that one way to strengthen these local broadcasters would be to rebalance the relationship between the owners of the large national networks, like ABC parent Disney, and the local stations.
“I think over the years, the balance of power has shifted too far into the hands of the national programmers, and they're effectively just using local TV stations as outlets for their own programming,” he stressed. “We're looking at lots of ways to really empower those local broadcast TV stations to actually identify the needs of their local communities and serve those needs of the local communities, and not merely become” something that passes along national programming.
The full fireside chat can be accessed at C-SPAN.org.
