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Note that Tom Delay of all people (remember that guy? I'm old and I'd say barely) wrote an opposing op ed saying that even though he supports the change that this is contrary to the governing statute that he helped write, which explicitly bars the FCC from changing this limit
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/can-trump-fcc-re...
Crime is legal (if you're in the right group).
Is anyone else wondering if this is just a “cover crime” for the ragebait while the real crime was s happening behind the scenes, not getting any attention because this news is capturing all of it? They’re doing something so ridiculously obvious that it’s illegal so they can’t possibly think this is where they gain something. The gain must be somewhere else.
Didn't the supreme court recently overturn the Chevron Doctrine?
Doesn't that mean agencies like this are not free to set their own rules when a law is ambiguous?
And isnt the cap on number of households reached actually codified unambiguously in federal law?
Seems to me like this should not be allowed to happen.
Let me know if I am wrong.
If this Baltimore Sun article is accurate, it's worse than that as it sounds like the FCC is overriding a law passed by Congress and not just (re)setting a rule.
> The 39% cap was established by Congress in 2004.
1. https://www.baltimoresun.com/2026/08/06/federal-communicatio...
> Doesn't that mean agencies like this are not free to set their own rules when a law is ambiguous?
Agencies can say whatever they want but courts are not required to defer to them when this inevitably goes to a lawsuit.
Well, you see, under the current administration, everything is allowed.
The law isn't ambiguous.
Don’t worry, the deeply principled conservative justices will never allow some random bureaucrats to legislate.
The difference in this case is that the victims are the general public, who don't even own a single lobbyist and can be safely ignored.
These laws, which exist in a similar way in Europe, intend to prevent media control by closed groups to take over democracy.
To be honest, scraping them on broadcast TV will probably have little influence, even though in the wrong direction, because TV is no longer the media with the most influence.
The real failure is that no one cared to regulate ownership of digital medias, i.e. social networks, Youtube, etc. These have shown documented examples of influencing elections directly.
Broadcast TV seems laughably irrelevant. It’s difficult to find official numbers, but under 1% of US households have no cable, satellite TV, home Internet, or a cell phone. The latter two are how people consume video and TV to a large degree today.
In exchange, we have a great deal of spectrum tied up for terrestrial TV, much of which goes to running infomercials or else is surreptitiously leased for terrestrial data broadcasts. And the government gets to decide to regulate it so it becomes inherently politicised - like favouring certain owners.
Realistically - this spectrum should simply be reassigned for IP based services, with perhaps some set aside for non profit / educational uses, some for commercial, etc.
(Radio is pretty much the same boat but I can see a case to be made for keeping some analog FM radio broadcasts. The 6MHz per channel for TV is insane.)
> Broadcast TV seems laughably irrelevant. It’s difficult to find official numbers, but under 1% of US households have no cable,
It's not that people are literally watching these on over the air digital TV antenna systems, but that if you have a "Broadcast TV" station in a certain market, it becomes carried by default on cable systems, direct to home satellite satellite dish systems, and regional FTTH providers' last-mile cable-tv-equivalent products.
Look at for example how all the Seattle TV stations are carried on Comcast or Astound's networks.
> this spectrum should simply be reassigned for IP based services, with perhaps some set aside for non profit / educational uses, some for commercial, etc.
We've got internet, but no cable. So we still watch over-the-air TV, though it's mostly PBS at this point (which is non profit). Also listen to FM radio - mostly NPR, a jazz station and a classical station - all also non-profit.
> Realistically - this spectrum should simply be reassigned for IP based services, with perhaps some set aside for non profit / educational uses, some for commercial, etc.
They did this in the US already, three times.
In 1983, channels 70 to 83 were taken for mobile phones. In 2008, rf channels 52-69 were reassigned, and 2016, rf 38-51 were reassigned. rf 37 is reserved for radio astronomy.
Broadcast TV seems laughably irrelevant.
The people who watch it vote in numbers far out of proportion to their peers. Nobody would bother to capture the industry if it weren't worthwhile.
> It’s difficult to find official numbers, but under 1% of US households have no cable, satellite TV, home Internet, or a cell phone. The latter two are how people consume video and TV to a large degree today.
Fairly wrong/irrelevant metric. Lots of people subscribe to Netflix and watch OTA broadcasts.
Lots of people stick to a Plex membership just because of its DVR capability - that's for broadcast TV.
Lots of DVR and adjacent products out there on the market for people who watch broadcast TV.
I wouldn't dream of getting a cable subscription when I can get so much good content for free. Streaming fills the rest.
Irrelevant? I was under the impression cord cutting is pretty common. If you want to watch live sports or the news, you need CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX. We use a MoHu antenna in the attic.
> but under 1% of US households have no cable, satellite TV, home Internet, or a cell phone.
Why are you bundling all those things together? The only thing we care about here is cable or satellite TV for your argument.
This analysis doesn't pass the sniff test. The presence of cable, satellite, or internet access says nothing about broadcast TV viewership. This is ownership of the content creation of local stations, not just the broadcast towers. Those stations have a presence on social media and streaming services.
That's just step 1. In step 2, the argument goes: "See this is already allowed for broadcast tv. Streaming is no different, so we demand the same change there"... and so on.
Why the fuck would I spend thousands of dollars on cable or satellite or streaming when I can buy a $20 antenna once, plug it into the back of any modern TV, and get free channels (including major sporting events) forever?
People don’t use broadcast because they don’t know how to set it up, or because they don’t have a TV, or because they can justify buying cable for whatever reason.
I heard in some European countries they packed digital SD channels into less spectrum (one 6 MHz channel can carry 4-5 TV channels). We should have done that here instead of broadcasting HD.
Wow, the people buying them up must be really stupid then. You should tell them.
Except for live sports, for which it is still vastly superior - no subscription required.
Brendan Carr will need to go to prison too, I suppose. There’s nothing in the universe of an argument for why he should be allowed to overturn the will of Congress here, he’s just a petty criminal who doesn’t think he has to follow the rules. 2029 is gonna be a tough year.
He will be pardoned by trump before the latter leaves the office. There will be LOTS of people pardoned by trump.
I immigrated from a very poor, military-ruled country to the US more than 20 years ago. It is very sad to see the democratic system and the rule of law eroding in the US. All the mistakes that I observed and lived through in my former country are being practiced in the US these days.
In the early 2000’s analog public TV broadcasts were turned off in the Netherlands. The only way to receive the publicly funded channels was through a commercial company requiring a subscription to a digital service. I learned a lot that time.
I do think this is an interesting topic. You can take the perspective that the government shouldn't have a monopoly on approving who can communicate over the airwaves so long as they aren't committing a crime and also shouldn't be able to outcompete companies trying to make a profit.
At the same time, in a country with many competing localities, radio stations, public broadcast TV, university channels, etc like the US it is quite nice so long as it's balanced. I think in the US it is a legal requirement that any licensed broadcasts legally meet some bar as being "in service to the public". Many companies have a similar philosophy and see themselves as doing a good thing by serving the public, while running a sustainable business at the same time. Not all companies, though.
That's not to say we haven't seen garbage broadcast over the airwaves that I wouldn't consider to be in service to the public, but on average it's alright.
What was Netherlands' reasoning for doing this?
This does not seem to undo caps on ownership within broadcast markets, though? That seems like a more sensible cap to me. Of course, if Congress made the cap and didn't give authority to the FCC to adjust it, they shouldn't be trying. But I'm not familiar with the statutes involved.
A necessary tool to manufacture consent in the feudalist society we're speed running towards
What could possibly go wrong?
> In a 2-1 vote, the FCC repealed a 22-year-old rule holding that a company cannot own stations that reach more than a combined 39% of the U.S. television audience.
This seems like a very odd rule. What about things like CNN? Aren't they available to 100% of households?
Broadcast bandwidth is a limited resource, so it’s subject to special rules to ensure it’s fairly distributed in the public interest. It’s true that the rules aren’t nearly as important as they were when non-broadcast news was harder to find, although that doesn’t give the criminals in charge of the FCC a right to ignore the law.
The FCC mainly regulates broadcast. CNN is cable. Also, there's a difference between a station being in more than 39% of households and being 39% of the total market. Other stations still compete with CNN.
This is about over-the-air/broadcast stations (e.g., ABC/NBC/CBS affiliates), not cable stations like CNN.
48927851 | FCC to repeal 39% TV ownership cap in boost for Trump-friendly news orgs | https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/fcc-to-repeal-39... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927851
This will be remembered in history as a major test of whether we turn from a Republic to an Empire. If the executive can successfully override Congressional law, it's no longer a democracy.
Obligatory, if you haven't seen it yet:
of course they do. Prepare for sinclair to own everything.
Nexsar is taking over Tegna. Currently tied up in courts, but it's pretty much sinclair-like propaganda machine.
I haven't watched broadcast TV in over a decade, except for live sports. I also haven't listened to broadcast radio in even longer. My teenage children don't know how to use the TV or radio. It's like someone telling me a company has a monopoly on the telephone lines; nostalgic for me but utterly useless in 2026.
most people aren't hn readers. broadcast tv is far from useless in 2026, that's how many normies watch tv.
I love being able to watch sports for free with my antenna. I hope that doesn't end for a long time.
And you believe everyone is just like you? What are the consequences of consolidating ownership of broadcast stations? Remember the Kimmel incident? How does that go with even more consolidation?
I wish more people would play the game Monopoly and realize how much it can suck to live in a world full of monopolies.