Trump FCC Attempts Illegal 'Repeal' of Congress’ National Broadcast Ownership Cap

On Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced his scheme to repeal a limit that Congress set on the national reach of broadcast-television conglomerates. Lifting the cap from its congressionally mandated limit of 39 percent of national audience is key to a proposed merger between two giant broadcast conglomerates: Nexstar and Tegna.

As Free Press explained in comments filed last year in the agency’s proceeding, Carr’s machinations serve the interests of broadcast lobbyists and media moguls who align themselves with the Trump administration and hope to monopolize the broadcast dial. But the FCC’s power grab ignores the law in pursuit of Carr’s partisan and self-aggrandizing aims.

In 2025, the FCC asked for public comment on changing or eliminating the national broadcast-ownership rule that Congress set. The rule prohibits any television-broadcast conglomerate from exceeding the 39 percent cap that’s designed to limit the size and national reach of giant broadcasters — like Fox Corporation, Nexstar and Sinclair — that already own hundreds of stations across the country.

At the time, Free Press explained that the agency has no authority to change the numerical limit Congress set in statute. Free Press’ filing notes that Carr’s goal is to fulfill the Trump administration’s desire “to use the Commission’s licensing authority to exert total control over the media.”

“Media consolidation and deal approvals are now explicitly a way for President Trump to further consolidate his dictatorial power, through explicit loyalty tests and pledges to use the public airwaves as a propaganda tool against the American public,” the filing reads.

Indeed, in March the FCC tried to waive this limit to approve Nexstar’s acquisition of Tegna Inc. That merger would give Nexstar access to 80 percent of U.S. households over the nation’s broadcast airwaves. Although the companies rushed to close the transaction on the basis of the FCC’s unauthorized and unlawful waiver, federal courts in California halted the transaction in light of the antitrust lawsuits from both state attorneys general and private parties against this massive broadcast concentration.

Matt Wood, Free Press vice president of policy and general counsel, said:

“Brendan Carr’s arrogance matches that of his boss Donald Trump as the FCC chairman works to bend or break every rule to grow his own power and aid his political allies. But just as the FCC had no power to waive a congressional statute to grease the skids for Nexstar’s merger with Tegna, it has no power now to completely obliterate the limit Congress set.

“It’s not just advocacy groups like Free Press who’ve called out Carr’s hypocrisy and hubris. Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees the FCC, held an entire hearing in February to probe this question. Cruz himself eviscerated and embarrassed broadcast lobbyists over their implausible reading of the law. Chris Ruddy, the CEO of the conservative cable-news outlet Newsmax, testified at the same hearing about the difficulties other outlets face when they must compete against larger and larger broadcast conglomerates. Ruddy also noted that Congress explicitly set the national cap — and stripped the FCC of the authority to change or abandon it.

“Carr claims that FCC heads in both parties have agreed that the agency still has the power to ignore and override Congress’ will, but his fabrications and spin don’t stand up to scrutiny.

“While broadcasters plead poverty and claim that they should be allowed to reach the entire country the way that online platforms do, they already can. Nothing prevents a company like Nexstar from having a national website or cable-news channel. The national cap is not a special disadvantage for broadcasters. In fact, broadcasters have a special advantage with their exclusive licenses to use precious national airwaves the way they do.

“As Free Press has shown many times, the national cap remains good policy. It promotes competition, localism and diversity in broadcasting, incentivizing stations to preserve local newsrooms and local-journalism jobs instead of duplicating stories nationwide and passing that off as local news. But whatever the law’s merits may be, the key point is that Brendan Carr cannot undo the limit that Congress set just because he feels like it.”