At the FCC

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

Broadcast networks are going to likely show their restraint during the daytime. 

If it's live, then the president should know better and no station should be penalized for a fleeting remark of his.

 

Cable news is free to broadcast it as they please since they're not subject to FCC guidelines.  They just show restraint with the "7 deadly words" but can air them.  Even some of the movie networks like IFC are starting to air uncut movies with the profanity intact.

Edited June 24, 2025 by tyrannical bastard

[NowBergen 924]

It was a live news event.  I'm sure Carr will not investigate airing what trump says, considering he is his puppet.

[Megatron81 343]

Nothing will happen Biden said the F-bomb when Obamacare was passed. I say let the F-Bomb fly it isn't that big a deal in my opinion, and I don't get why lots still get offended by the F-Bomb in this day and age broadcaster should be allowed to have the F-Bomb fly in primetime maybe for 10PM to 6AM that is safe harbor but seems that the broadcasters don't use it for some reason. 

[broadcastfan9751 150]

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its decision in the case challenging the FCC's ownership rules. While upholding most of it, they overturned the decision to keep the top-four rule and the tightening of it to include LPTVs and subchannels. The Court gave the FCC 90 days to justify retaining the top-four rule.

 

https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/25/07/241380P.pdf

 

Edited July 23, 2025 by broadcastfan9751

[l_miro 245]

fwiw AI built for lawyers gave this summary:

"Hedge fund investors, private equity, and media conglomerates like Nexstar should reevaluate their portfolios and may undertake a divestiture of small-market assets [...] and target the most valuable pairs, a #1 and #2 station in a larger market would obtain a significant market share without triggering antitrust...

 

small market stations, below even market 70?... are probably toast-ed

[Rusty Muck 4688]

6 hours ago, broadcastfan9751 said:

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its decision in the case challenging the FCC's ownership rules. While upholding most of it, they overturned the decision to keep the top-four rule and the tightening of it to include LPTVs and subchannels. The Court gave the FCC 90 days to justify retaining the top-four rule.

 

https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/25/07/241380P.pdf

 

Isn't it a moot point when Lapdog Carr is probably going to trash all the rules so Nexstar can just buy up everything along with CBS?

Edited July 23, 2025 by Rusty Muck

[l_miro 245]

20 hours ago, Rusty Muck said:

Isn't it a moot point when Lapdog Carr is probably going to trash all the rules so Nexstar can just buy up everything along with CBS?

 

FCC can't trash a whole lot. The top 4 rule was made up by the FCC in 2002 under Bush. The way it was instituted had so many holes that never got taken care of. Then congress in 2004 put the 39% cap in place and took FCC's authority away from being able to modify it. Congress will have to go back and rescind that, the FCC is stuck with it.

 

FWIW Newsmax came out against any loosening of the rules that allows concentration of station ownership, and sounds like they'd even like a return to the old 25% hard cap and no UHF discount which would cause Nexstar and others to have to divest 20-40% of their portfolio

[Rusty Muck 4688]

5 hours ago, l_miro said:

 

FCC can't trash a whole lot. The top 4 rule was made up by the FCC in 2002 under Bush. The way it was instituted had so many holes that never got taken care of. Then congress in 2004 put the 39% cap in place and took FCC's authority away from being able to modify it. Congress will have to go back and rescind that, the FCC is stuck with it.

Bold of anyone to assume that Carr will do anything based on FCC precedent and not use the commission as a political weapon and tool to enrich his friends.

 

The GOP House and Senate will dutifully fall in line with whatever Carr demands, with either Susan Collins or Mitch or Murkowski clutching their pearls or some stupid stunt and it won’t matter because their votes are irrelevant to the outcome anyway. And the dems will be too feckless, useless and old to do anything.

 

The fix is in.

Edited July 25, 2025 by Rusty Muck

[AmericanErrorist 267]

Carr has sent a letter to NBCUniversal stating that it is going to investigate station renewals that "...attempt to extract onerous financial and operational concessions from local broadcast TV stations."

 

https://deadline.com/2025/07/fcc-comcast-nbc-investigation-affiliates-1236474051/

Edited July 30, 2025 by AmericanErrorist

[NowBergen 924]

20 minutes ago, AmericanErrorist said:

Carr has sent a letter to NBCUniversal stating that it is going to investigate station renewals that "...attempt to extract onerous financial and operational concessions from local broadcast TV stations."

 

https://deadline.com/2025/07/fcc-comcast-nbc-investigation-affiliates-1236474051/

The fact he used Newsmax to announce this is all you need to know about his motivation.  

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

Isn't that retransmission consent to begin with?

 

But there's stuff that's going on much worse than the KYW/WKYC trade, RKO General, and probably even the things that cost WLBT and WJIM (WLNS) their licenses back then.

 

Retrans is out of control, but NBC/Comcast is probably the most cooperative out all of the networks in terms of the partnership between affiliate and network.

Edited July 30, 2025 by tyrannical bastard

[mer764KCTV5 213]

6 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Isn't that retransmission consent to begin with?

 

But there's stuff that's going on much worse than the KYW/WKYC trade, RKO General, and probably even the things that cost WLBT and WJIM (WLNS) their licenses back then.

 

Retrans is out of control, but NBC/Comcast is probably the most cooperative out all of the networks in terms of the partnership between affiliate and network.

Yea, like I highly doubt that NBC, Comcast and NBCUniversal wouldn't be co-operative. Plus, Retransmission, like what you said, is pretty much out of any control. 

 

Like, why focus on NBCUniversal when the FCC could potentially if they can that is focus on the streaming services and tell 'em to knock it off?

[nathannah 2792]

NBC is beyond the most reasonable RTC'ers and hasn't revoked an affiliation outside the WHDH situation, and this is stupid.

 

NBC was proactive in equal time by bringing him an equivalent audience to the Kamala appearance.They resolved the dispute right away, and yet he's still going after them.

 

Crossing my fingers that they do fight and this doesn't get stupider; you know advertiser refusal for something idiotic (bad BBB record/account in arrears but is 'oppressed by The Man') is going to be next.

[l_miro 245]

6 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Retrans is out of control, but NBC/Comcast is probably the most cooperative out all of the networks in terms of the partnership between affiliate and network.

 

hardly. NBC demands to negotiate retrans on behalf of affiliates in exchange for a contract. You can make an argument stations don't have to agree but the network makes demands like branding must include NBC in the name, promoting programming, etc that ties up the affiliate to the network, robbing it of its own identity, and making it harder to leave.

 

And let's not forget what they did to WHDH, to show what they're willing do to other affiliates who think of saying no. After Ansin told them no NBC returned with an offer - lose the affiliation or sell us WHDH facilities for ~$70 million and shut down the business. Not sell us the station, sell us the facilites, when as a whole WHDH was worth $400-$700 million. That's about as unprecedented as ABC landing on 7.2 in Miami. NBC wanted to crush discent and decided to do it to one of their top rated affiliates.

 

Newsmax are on the record as being against any further consolidation, they appear to want the opposite - hard ownership caps with no wiggle room.

 

Sinclair wants unlimited station ownership. They've been harping on this for almost a decade ie merging itself with Tegna, Nexstar, Gray to own as many stations as they want, forcing ATSC 3.0 on everyone with channel encryption - afterall their big brains thought up that standard - and "compete" against streaming becase scale or something...

Edited July 31, 2025 by l_miro

[l_miro 245]

7 hours ago, AmericanErrorist said:

Carr has sent a letter to NBCUniversal stating that it is going to investigate station renewals that "...attempt to extract onerous financial and operational concessions from local broadcast TV stations."

 

https://deadline.com/2025/07/fcc-comcast-nbc-investigation-affiliates-1236474051/

 

 

Quote

 

The affiliates argued that they are subsidizing ever increasing live sports rights, yet they are no longer exclusive to broadcast.

 

“Increasingly, the networks are using their own subscription-based streaming platforms to distribute the same programming, including live sports, being licensed to (and paid for by) broadcasters. In a perverse anticompetitive twist, local affiliates are forced to pay the networks for the opportunity to compete for viewers and advertising revenue against platforms owned by the very same networks with which they are affiliated (on terms and conditions that are disadvantageous and anticompetitive, to boot).”

 

They also have argued that the power dynamics have “artificially” depressed local stations’ revenue, making it even more difficult for the stations to help networks secure high valued sports rights. Instead, such events as NFL playoffs are going behind paywalls.

 

In his letter, Carr also cited restrictions on a station’s negotiations for carriage on streaming platforms, as well as provisions that “restrict a local station’s ability to compete for local sports rights.”

 

 

so an affiliate complained. Sounds like the house of cards is slowly collapsing on one end with cable TV losing high-value subscribers and $30-$40/monthly broadcast fee revenue per subscriber, and this new development on the other end. 

 

If stations are given their retrans fee back it will destroy the network business model for sports. Or networks will have to stop being greedy. Ads alone or Peacock can't support the $3B NFL yearly fee.

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

Sooner or later we'll be like Canada where the (remaining) networks will decimate local content in favor of strong regionalism or outright national delivery of most content.  CBS and their O&Os have gone the furthest in this direction in terms of their branding.

 

I just await the day when the networks tell the NFL to pound sand and they start suffering.  Time and time again, I say that it's a tax on the American TV consumer, and it needs to stop NOW. 

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

I'm not good at reading FCC documents, so I may need some help here, but it looks like Gray's KCBU Price (Utah) is officially on the air on Channel 15, not Channel 3 like beforehand.

 

What's interesting is that KCBU's main studio, according to this... is in Phoenix, the home of Arizona's Family: KTVK 3TV, KPHO CBS 5, and KPHE Arizona's Family Sports.

 

https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/public/tv/draftCopy.html?displayType=html&appKey=25076f9199118fc401991a5455160883&id=25076f9199118fc401991a5455160883&goBack=N

[AmericanErrorist 267]

The official FCC review on network/affiliate relationships has begun:

 

https://deadline.com/2025/11/trump-fcc-network-affiliate-relationships-1236624134/

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

8 hours ago, AmericanErrorist said:

The official FCC review on network/affiliate relationships has begun:

 

https://deadline.com/2025/11/trump-fcc-network-affiliate-relationships-1236624134/

Give me a break.  If reverse compensation was not a thing, this would not be an issue.

 

If anything, stations should be granted the right at the local level to pre-empt programming for a compelling reason.  But with mega-companies like Sinclair and Nexstar forcing their content down the pipeline, these local station managers are basically faced to tow the company line, despite what the viewers think.

 

And in exchange, if a station chooses to pre-empt network content, viewers should always have a way of watching it otherwise, especially live events.  Affiliates abuse this exclusivity when they decide what and what not to air.

Edited November 20, 2025 by tyrannical bastard

[AmericanErrorist 267]

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Give me a break.  If reverse compensation was not a thing, this would not be an issue.

 

If anything, stations should be granted the right at the local level to pre-empt programming for a compelling reason.  But with mega-companies like Sinclair and Nexstar forcing their content down the pipeline, these local station managers are basically faced to tow the company line, despite what the viewers think.

 

And in exchange, if a station chooses to pre-empt network content, viewers should always have a way of watching it otherwise, especially live events.  Affiliates abuse this exclusivity when they decide what and what not to air.

 

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Give me a break.  If reverse compensation was not a thing, this would not be an issue.

 

If anything, stations should be granted the right at the local level to pre-empt programming for a compelling reason.  But with mega-companies like Sinclair and Nexstar forcing their content down the pipeline, these local station managers are basically faced to tow the company line, despite what the viewers think.

 

And in exchange, if a station chooses to pre-empt network content, viewers should always have a way of watching it otherwise, especially live events.  Affiliates abuse this exclusivity when they decide what and what not to air.

You mean at the exact time it was to premiere?

[AmericanErrorist 267]

There was a hearing in the Senate on the current station ownership limits on Tuesday. Chris Ruddy and NAB chair Curtis Legeyt gave testimony, but no one from any particular ownership group appeared.

https://deadline.com/2026/02/nexstar-tegna-merger-senate-hearing-1236714485/

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

Scripps now officially owns KKTV, KMVT/KSVT, and KKCO/KJCT. Gray now owns KATC and WSYM.

 

It became official after the FCC approved the swap between the two media groups.

 

https://www.tvtechnology.com/regulatory-legal/fcc-approves-station-swaps-between-scripps-and-gray-media