FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is moving to eliminate a decades-old rule that caps how many television stations one entity can own — a regulation he says is now strangling local news outlets while letting national media giants run unchecked.
Carr wrote in an op-ed published exclusively to Breitbart News on Wednesday that the Federal Communications Commission will vote August 6 to scrap the ownership caps in favor of a case-by-case approval process for deals that serve the public interest.
“Repealing the national cap will provide essential relief for local broadcasters by restoring a healthy counterbalance to the growing leverage of national programmers.”
The current cap prevents any broadcaster from owning enough stations to reach more than 39 percent of U.S. households — a rule adopted decades ago to restrain the power of national programmers based in New York and Hollywood.
That cap used to work. It checked the power of the big networks and protected local stations.
But the media landscape has transformed, Carr explained. National programmers no longer depend on local TV stations to distribute content.
“Today, national programmers can distribute their programming to 100 percent of the country — either through their own streaming services or through deals they cut with nationwide ‘virtual cable companies,’ like YouTubeTV,” Carr wrote.
Cable channels, social media platforms, Netflix, podcasts — they all reach 100 percent of the country. No caps. No limits.
Meanwhile, local broadcasters remain handcuffed by the 39 percent rule.
“Today, the cap is not protecting local broadcasters, it is preventing them from gaining the same scale that their competitors are free to enjoy,” Carr wrote. “In other words, the national cap is now doing the exact opposite of what the FCC intended.”
The consequences are visible across America. Local TV stations lack the bargaining power to refuse programming that doesn’t fit their communities’ values. National programmers charge them more and more for the privilege of airing shows. Local newsrooms struggle to fund live, trusted community coverage.
“Many local broadcast TV stations are getting hollowed out as a result and turning into little more than mouthpieces for programming produced in New York and Hollywood.”
Carr warned that local TV is following the same death spiral as local newspapers — which the FCC kept under outdated ownership rules until 2017, long after the economics had shifted. Newspapers shut down by the dozen. Americans were left choosing from a small handful of national outlets.
“We can’t let local broadcast TV follow the same path,” Carr wrote.
Eliminating the cap will let broadcasters attract the capital and advertising revenue they need to sustain community-focused news and programming, Carr said.
“It’s time to restore balance to the broadcast airwaves,” he concluded.
The FCC vote is scheduled for August 6.
NEW and EXCLUSIVE to @BreitbartNews — @FCC Chairman @BrendanCarrFCC writes an oped exclusively for Breitbart revealing the FCC will in August move to eliminate ownership caps on local television stations: pic.twitter.com/XetMWP2V1j
— Matthew Boyle (@mboyle1) July 15, 2026
