Several more major broadcast groups are hoping FCC Chairman Brendan Carr will add the current local radio ownership market limits to his list of pesky regulations to delete.
According to public filings by the broadcasters, Cumulus Media and Beasley Media Group are the latest to visit the chair in Washington to discuss the need for further deregulation.
Radio World reported last week that Jeff Warshaw, the CEO of Connoisseur Media, took a meeting with Carr to discuss the same topic and painted a dire picture of broadcast radio’s future unless ownership caps are relaxed.
And in separate meetings on June 10, Cumulus CEO Mary Berner and Beasley CEO Caroline Beasley stressed with Carr what they see as an urgent need to remove local radio ownership restrictions.
The FCC is currently reviewing if the need for ownership caps remains as part of its Quadrennial Review process.
According to the group’s filing, the Beasley CEO urged for elimination of local radio ownership caps, citing heavy competition from streaming music services, podcasts, social media, giant digital advertising platforms, smart devices and automotive phone integration systems.
“Due to the complete transformation of the media and advertising markets in the past three decades, the limitations imposed on broadcast radio stations but not their competitors now harm rather than promote competition, diversity, and localism and should be repealed,” Beasley Media wrote in a summary of the recent meeting.
Broadcast radio does not exist in a “siloed market with radio stations only competing against other radio stations,” Beasley told Carr.
“In today’s extremely competitive marketplace, radio broadcasters lacking critical economies of scale cannot compete effectively for listeners and advertisers against larger audio and advertising market players.”
Beasley Media Group and other broadcasters have documented the shift of advertising dollars away from radio stations to digital platforms, according to the filing.
The current local ownership caps also limit the ability of radio broadcasters to obtain the crucial investments necessary for their local radio stations to continue producing entertaining, informational and lifesaving programming, according to Beasley’s meeting recap.
“Continuing to starve the radio industry of the capital and scale it needs to survive will not serve the public interest,” Caroline Beasley told the chairman.
Cumulus’ Berner, meanwhile, emphasized to Carr that significant relaxation of the radio ownership rules would be required for companies in the industry to invest in the future of radio and preserve localism.
At the meeting, Berner also discussed the pending Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings regarding Cumulus, including the applications for commission consent to the transfer of control which will result from Cumulus’ emergence from bankruptcy.
As we also reported Monday, the media company needs to secure FCC approval to fully emerge from bankruptcy, which now could be delayed until late summer or early fall.
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