Take The Lid Off Local Broadcasting

Lee Spieckerman

Nexstar has proposed a station ownership cap of 78%. I say, anything less than 100% is unacceptable.

Why are NBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, CW — all owned by media behemoths that dwarf non-network TV station groups (CBS, the smallest, is almost twice the size of Nexstar and Tribune combined) — allowed to reach 100% of the country, simply because they are called “networks?”

This ridiculous — and, arguably, unconstitutional — double standard is rooted in the long-enshrined doctrine that stations are the gatekeepers in the broadcast TV ecosystem and control what most viewers see. That’s a laughable artifice.

The three largest broadcast networks, NBC, CBS and ABC, have, almost since the dawn of television, exercised de facto control over their affiliates, tantamount to McDonald’s and other franchisers’ dominance over their franchisees.

Those networks, and now Fox, provide most of the programming for the hours with the highest viewership — and stipulate that their affiliates carry almost all of it. The result is that network programming is what most American broadcast TV viewers see, most of the time. The broadcast outlet is almost immaterial.

Likewise, NBC, ABC and CBS network morning and evening news shows reach tens of millions of viewers in 100% of the country, seven days a week, through their owned stations and affiliates. A vastly larger audience than Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and the aggregate local news audiences of even the largest TV groups. When it comes to national news coverage on broadcast TV, 99% is provided by the major networks. Again, the local station is almost a non-factor.

So, here’s the current Alice-in-Wonderland TV broadcast regulatory paradigm in a nutshell.

Even if the networks were to eschew affiliates and own a TV station in every market, their ability to reach viewers, their power to influence the national electorate, wouldn’t materially increase from where it is today.

If you you’re a “network,” it’s fine if your news and entertainment programming, and ads, reach 100% of the country through stations you own in big markets — and affiliates you strongarm in all the other markets. That doesn’t impair viewer choice; it’s no threat to “a diversity of voices.” But you’re prohibited from accomplishing the same thing by obtaining additional broadcast licenses — each of which makes you more accountable to the government and, theoretically, more responsive to viewers in those markets. And even though your additional stations will probably be relying on one of the same major networks for most programming!

This too-long-ignored broadcast TV regulation contradiction has exactly the opposite of its intended effect. Prohibiting TV broadcast groups like Nexstar, Sinclair and Tegna from at least approaching the reach of the big networks dramatically diminishes their ability to invest in more non-network programming options for viewers, become serious contenders in the burgeoning streaming marketplace and effectively compete with the networks and digital titans. How can that possibly be in “the public interest?”

Clearly, the cap on TV station ownership is utterly unjustifiable, in that the major networks, through the patina of “affiliates,” already reach 100% of the country and dominate the broadcast TV and video news landscape. And it’s an untenable structural disadvantage for broadcasters — who, lest we forget, make their highly sought-after content available free to everyone —in today’s brutal video marketplace.

It’s crucial that the federal government completely and expeditiously lift this scandalously unfair yoke from broadcasters.

Lee Spieckerman owns SpieckermanMedia, a media industry and political consulting firm. He has been an executive at a major TV group, adviser to Newt Gingrich, consultant to Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, and is a frequent commentator on Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.