The FCC just shredded local TV station ownership rules, despite questionable legality

The FCC has been threatening to rip up local TV station ownership rules and now it's gone and done it, according to a report by Deadline. In a 2-1 vote, the FCC has transformed Section 303 of the Communications Act, which guts the 39 percent rule. This rule had limited the reach of local TV networks to no more than 39 percent of the country's total audience market.

Now the agency will approve or deny TV ownership deals on a case-by-case basis, which I'm sure will not be influenced by money or partisan politics in any way. That was sarcasm.

The 39 percent rule was initially put in place to constrain the ability of broadcasters to consolidate stations and limit the power of any single media company. In other words, this is a huge win for entities like Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group. Both companies each currently provide official service to around, you guessed it, 39 percent of TV households.

Chris Ripley, the CEO of Sinclair Broadcast Group, praised the FCC's actions in an earnings call that took place before the FCC got to vote. "We think the FCC is on solid legal ground here in terms of their authority to change this rule and the rationale behind changing it," he said. "The FCC's mandate is to deregulate over time."

It is worth noting that Sinclair has already been the beneficiary of the FCC's largesse. The company received a waiver from the FCC to merge with rival local broadcast company Tegna. This potentially creates a behemoth of 260 stations that cover 80 percent of the country. The merger has run into an antitrust lawsuit brought by state attorneys general and DirecTV, which is still ongoing.

Despite being an obvious gift to local media conglomerates, FCC chair Brendan Carr is pitching this as a win for the little guy. He warned that inaction would see local stations "going the way of newspapers."

"It is time to restore balance to the broadcast airwaves," Carr, who has threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses of stations that air content that's deemed as unfavorable to the Trump Administration, said. "Repealing the national cap will provide essential relief for local broadcasters by restoring a healthy counterbalance to the growing leverage of national programmers."

He also said some gobbledygook about how this move will stop "undifferentiated passthroughs of national programming produced in Hollywood and New York." Gotta get that culture war stuff in, am I right?

Anna Gomez, the only person who voted no on the repeal, said in a statement that the "large station groups positioned to grow even larger under this decision are not local broadcasters, they are national companies that own local stations and increasingly dictate what airs on them."

Of course, it's likely this move will run into one or several court challenges. That's because it operates on questionable legal authority, at best. Section 10 of the Communications Act expressly forbids the FCC from bending the rules around Section 303. In other words, this is a job for Congress and not for a simple three-person committee vote.

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican, is one of the negotiators behind that 39 percent rule, which comes from a 2004 appropriations bill. He recently wrote an op-ed and stated unequivocally that "regulatory agencies cannot defy or modify laws enacted by Congress."

However, legality doesn't always seem to matter in today's world. It's worth remembering that we are more than five months into a war in Iran and Congress hasn't passed a formal declaration or even a specific Authorization for Use of Military Force.