Trump Opposes Lifting Broadcast Ownership Cap

The FCC is considering repealing a rule that limits broadcasters from reaching more than 39 percent of the national television audience.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr testifies before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington on May 21, 2025. John McDonnell/Getty Images

A possible initiative by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to repeal or revise a rule and allow companies to have increased ownership of television stations has been opposed by President Donald Trump.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has publicly mulled changing the body’s “national television multiple ownership rule” or “national audience reach cap,” a federal regulation that limits any one entity from owning television networks that reach more than 39 percent of television households in the country.

“I am glad that we are launching this proceeding,” Carr said in 2017 when the commission issued a notice seeking public comment on the rule.

In June this year, the FCC reopened the docket and asked for updated public comments in order to “refresh the record.”

On Nov. 23, Trump said that he opposed repealing the rule, saying lifting it would help media corporations such as the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), which he has said produce favorable coverage of the Democratic Party and left-wing politics.

“If this would also allow the Radical Left Networks to ‘enlarge,’ I would not be happy. ABC & NBC, in particular, are a disaster - A VIRTUAL ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY. They should be viewed as an illegal campaign to the Radical Left,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “NO EXPANSION OF THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS. If anything, make them SMALLER!”

Trump’s post included an article by Newsmax, which outlined the opposition from the broadcaster’s CEO, Christopher Ruddy, to repealing the rule.

Newsmax’s competitors would benefit from the rule’s repeal, which would be required for the commission to approve the acquisition of Tegna Media Group by Nexstar Media Group for $6.2 billion, according to Newsmax. Tegna owns 64 local news channels nationwide.

“If you have left-wing networks like ABC, NBC and CBS – or groups like Nexstar today controlling every local station and their local news — Republicans would have little chance to win in state and federal elections,” Ruddy said.

In contrast, other broadcasting industry advocates have publicly supported repealing the rule, saying lifting it would increase competition and ensure fairness for their industry, as other mass media industries—such as video services such as Netflix and Hulu, cable television, and social media—face no such limitation.

“Every other broadcast TV competitor—streamers, cable channels, online platforms, Big Tech video services—face no such restrictions. They can reach every American, every day, without asking anyone’s permission. And yet the one platform that’s actually free to the public is forced to play with weights strapped to its ankles,” National Association of Broadcasters Executive Vice President Rick Kaplan wrote in a statement on the association’s website. “The idea that this rule still makes sense in 2025 is laughable.”

Kaplan disagreed with Newsmax’s position.

“Newsmax isn’t worried about local journalism; it’s worried about competition,” he said. “And it fears a stronger broadcast industry because a stronger broadcast industry could lead to additional conservative voices with larger audiences—voices with whom Newsmax would have to actually compete.”

Some Republican members of Congress also support repealing the rule.

“We urge you to modernize the FCC’s broadcast ownership rules to enable local broadcasters to compete with today’s media giants,” wrote 22 Republican U.S. senators in a May 6 letter to Carr this year. “The regulations, designed for a bygone era, no longer reflect ... reality.”

Controversy has ensued over whether the commission can unilaterally increase or repeal the cap, or whether Congress must act to do so.

On Nov. 3, professor Brian T. Fitzpatrick of Vanderbilt University Law School filed an ex parte brief with the FCC.

“I am writing today because I read recently that the Commission is contemplating doing something that would be anathema to textualism: lifting the 39 percent nationwide television ownership cap despite a clear textual command from Congress otherwise,” Fitzpatrick wrote in the letter to the commission.

“Let me state at the outset that there may or may not be good policy reasons for lifting the ownership cap. I do not know the answer to that question because I am not a scholar of policy. But I am a scholar of law and I know that even the best policy reasons cannot override textual commands from Congress.”

In 2004, Congress amended the Telecommunications Act and specified 39 percent as the cap. Carr said in 2017 that the commission had the authority to modify the cap on its own.

“I am surprised that the issue of the Commission’s legal authority in this area has generated so much controversy,” Carr wrote in his 2017 statement. “After all, the FCC determined in 2016 that ’the Commission has the authority to modify the national audience reach cap.'”

ABC News and NBCUniversal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.