For Democratic Commissioner Anna M. Gómez, it is a proposal emblematic of how codifying rules are beneficial for “reducing burdens while protecting important public interests.” In the view of Chairman Brendan Carr, it is a matter of better efficiency that risks inconsistent outcomes and can waste agency resources.
That’s why all five votemakers on the FCC have approved a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would provide a more coherent and clearly stated foreign ownership requirements for those seeking to purchase a radio or TV station in the U.S.
A public draft of the NPRM was released on April 7, while many industry leaders were in Las Vegas for the 2025 NAB Show.
The Carr Commission believes the NPRM would set clear expectations about the Commission’s review under section 310(b) of the Act of foreign investment in common carrier wireless, aeronautical radio, and, importantly, broadcast licensees. This would reduce “unnecessary burdens” on the industry while continuing to protect the public interest, including national security, law enforcement, foreign policy, and trade policy.
To be clear, the NPRM opens up a comment period, and it’s a sure bet Rick Kaplan and his legal team at the NAB will be filing an ex parte brief expressing its view on behalf of its members.
In recent years, a number of radio broadcasting companies have unknowingly been faced with foreign ownership compliance concerns. In early 2024, the looming threat of a hostile takeover from billionaire Manoj Bhargava led Cumulus Media to initiate a “poison pill” defense to stave off a rapid accumulation of share from his Singapore-based renew group.
Then, there is industry leader iHeartMedia, which had been fancied by Michael Tabor and his Global Media & Entertainment Investments Ltd (GMEI) in early 2021 and set up a tussle between the owner of more than 800 radio stations in the U.S. and the man whose sun effectively controls UK audio brand parent Global.
In 2023, Spanish Broadcasting System won the FCC’s blessing for exceeding the 25% foreign investment benchmark; the request came after the company unknowingly saw its publicly traded shares get acquired by a non-U.S. entity a few years earlier.
More recently, the Rosenworcel Commission’s approval of Audacy’s emergence from debtor-in-possession status, giving control of the company to Soros Fund Management, has come under particular scrutiny from Republicans on Capitol Hill and on the Commission. Specifically, they take issue with a “fast tracking” of a proposal that has been blasted as a “Soros shortcut,” referring to billionaire Democratic Party supporter and philanthropist George Soros. This “shortcut” focused on an increase in Audacy’s foreign ownership concentration. However, as 2025 began Audacy told the Commission that the matter pertaining to non-U.S. ownership was moot, rendering any rewind of its post-bankruptcy regulatory OK unwarranted, the company argued.
That said, a controversy akin to that seen with Audacy and Soros Fund Management could be averted in the future with a clear foreign ownership regulatory policy. And in an age when “modernization” of Commission rules has led to a “Delete. Delete. Delete” initiative pushed forwarded by Chairman Carr himself, the Commission appears ready to add a new rule or toughen cobbled-together regulations in place today — something an opposing party could argue is against the Quadrennial Review’s very need to not strengthen or bring new rules making broadcast ownership more difficult to light.
Yet foreign ownership rules that are clearly stated could, in fact, ease broadcasters and open up new possibilities — should the final regulations create those pathways. This remains to be seen, with the next step being a Comment Date and Reply Comment Date to be established with the NPRM’s forthcoming publication in the Federal Register.
