WASHINGTON, D.C. — The lone Democrat casting a vote at the FCC has condemned a proposed Order that will be up for a vote at the Commission’s August Open Meeting that she believes will “unlawfully raise the national television ownership cap.”
While Commissioner Anna M. Gómez had much to say about the proposal released early Wednesday from Chairman Brendan Carr, it likely will hold little sway, with a 2-1 vote coming on August 6 over Gómez’s vociferous objections.
In a prepared statement, Gómez called Carr’s proposed Order an “unlawful effort to hand control of the public airwaves to billionaire buddies of this administration.”
And, she added, the Order’s approval, in her opinion, “will destroy local newsrooms, silence community reporting, and drive-up costs for the American families who depend on local stations for news and emergency alerts.”
That’s an opinion driven by the cable television industry, DirecTV and Dish and groups such as the American Television Alliance (ATVA), who assert without any definitive facts that fewer television station licensees will result in higher retransmission fees paid by these entities — on the grounds that a bigger broadcast group will have more leverage to increase the dollars funneling an essential revenue generation source.
Gomez also believes that “a free and diverse media landscape depends on real limits on how much of the public airwaves any one company can control, and this FCC is now poised to allow local broadcasters to sell those airwaves off to the highest bidder.”
Siding with Democrats, Gómez believes it is the job of Congress, which set the 39% national ownership cap, to raise or eliminate it.
Senate Commerce Committee Members who participated in a February hearing on Capitol Hill examining the cap, which RBR+TVBR covered in-person, are likely examining Carr’s proposed Order vote closely. Given the months since the hearing, legislators are likely well-versed and at the ready to act should the Commission be taken to court with the expected 2-1 passage of the Order in early August.
